Today, the majority of the world's population is living in urban cities and their surrounding areas. While this urban growth has largely been spawned by economic developments and the promise of improved quality of life, the resulting success has put a tremendous strain on the buildings, green space and infrastructure of our cities: the core systems that deliver vital services like transportation, energy, healthcare, social care, education, communications, water, and public safety.
By 2050 70% of the world's population is projected to live in cities. These cities will also be impacted by climate change to varying degrees and stakeholders including civic leaders, local authorities, public sector officials, private sector companies and NGOs, are becoming increasingly concerned as to how cities will evolve in the future.
This working group has been created to help cities, their citizens and stakeholders adapt to these pressures including mitigating and adapting to the effects of climate change.
It will help the transition towards SMARTER low carbon societies and economies through the use of technology.
Activities over the next 3 Months include:
1) Defining a smarter city
- What are the challenges facing cities today and the foreseeable future
- Envisioning what will a successful smart sustainable city look in the next 10/20 years
- Evaluating the critical areas for change
2) Collaboration and partnership
- Understanding the need, challenges and potential solutions for policy makers, local authorities, public services, industry and researchers to be more connected with each other and other parts of society.
- Debating the challenges of traditional City governance structures and the complexities of multi- agency involvement in making change happen
- Explore how to share evidence of measurable monitoring of progress between public and private sector partners
3) The complexities of interconnecting & integrating intelligent built environments with
- Urban design, planning and economic development
- Real estate development and smarter buildings
- Key utilities (energy, water & gas) & their infrastructure i.e. Smart grids
- Transportation
- Digital & Telecommunication Technology
