What are the challenges facing smart cities initiatives?
The greatest challenge facing smart city initiatives is going to be the fear of reduced Privacy. With all the data being collected by the city governments, there is bound to be an enormous amount of distrust associated with these programmes. The general public is going to have strong opinions, and they have every right to them. The local governments have a challenging task ahead of them if they are going to start deploying big data collection devices throughout the city. There are three main ways the local government can achieve success. Outreach prior to the creation of policy. Host events. Have hackathons. Host competitions. Don’t just get smart city initiatives going as part of the hype. Actually reach out, listen to people’s problems, and let them help be part of the solution. It’ll help if people are part of the solution. Education for the general public. It is human nature to fear the unknown. For many, the IT world in general is a big question mark. Even for those who are tech savvy, the idea of big data and it prying into our lives is a scary idea. Cities should be doing more to make sure people are aware of exactly what is being deployed, how it works, and who will have access to the data. More importantly, there needs to be concrete and definable benefits. It would also be wise for cities to define a date at which they will evaluate the effectiveness of the initiative. For example, if additional devices are deployed to increase the efficiency of mass transit, set a date, say two years for now, for the reevaluation. Open Data policies and lots of marketing. The data collected via smart devices must be available to everyone. This is a no brainer for many governments. The missing components will be the marketing elements. By this I don’t mean commercials for coming smart city initiatives. I mean the government and policy makers need to get the word out however they can. Many cities fail to reach their constituents and help them understand what is available to them. Views: 612, Upvotes: 3