Defining the future of cities in Asia
New approaches to governance and citizen services are being driven by dramatic demographic shifts. The world’s population is increasingly concentrating in urban centers. Fifty percent of people today are living in cities, and that is expected to grow to 70 percent by 2050. Not only will existing cities have to evolve to serve this growing population, but it is estimated that 9,000 new cities will have to be created around the world to accommodate the growth.
In October, Microsoft’s Asia team sponsored Future Cities Asia, a premier smart cities event held in Hong Kong. The event brought together senior government executives, urban planners, academics, investors and other private sector leaders from some of Asia’s leading cities to learn how harnessing technology can transform urban infrastructure from passive delivery channels to intelligent, efficient, and sustainable systems. It also provided an opportunity to demonstrate how Microsoft’s CityNext vision can help communities meet the challenges presented by this growth by leveraging technology for smart energy, smart buildings, smart governance, smart healthcare, and smart transportation.
Microsoft’s Public Sector Vice President for Asia, Stefan Sjoestroem, presented the Day One keynote address on “CityNext—Building Cities that are Modern, Safe, Healthy and Educated through Connecting with People.” In addition to hosting the track on Smart Resilience, I presented a talk on Day Two on “Harnessing Technology for Safe & Resilient Cities.”
The technologies available for use in the cities of today and tomorrow are being driven by a number of major trends:
- Technology is becoming more mobile, with smartphone and tablet penetration expected to reach 1 billion users by 2016.
- Millennials, who have grown up with mobile technology and expect Internet and data access anytime and anywhere, will make up 75 percent of the workforce in America by 2025.
- Seventy percent of organizations now are using or investigating cloud computing solutions.
- Big Data already is here, with digital content having grown by an estimated 48 percent from 2011 to 2012, to 2.7 Zetabits.
Together with the opportunities that these trends offer, there also are challenges to be met in putting tools to use by cities, including overcoming technology obsolescence, aligning IT with mission, integrating systems, sharing information, and accommodating mobility; all while ensuring the security of these systems and their data. Microsoft’s people-first approach with CityNext builds resilience into municipal systems with a portfolio of familiar consumer and business technology, leveraging a vast partner ecosystem. These solutions are adapted to education, public safety and justice, health and social services, utilities, infrastructure, tourism and culture, transportation, and government administration.
Benefits of the CityNext approach include:
- Enhanced efficiency and greater public access.
- Improved public safety through leveraging existing data.
- Leveraging cloud-first, mobile-first technology to better engage and serve citizens.
- Putting communications and information into the hands of workers on the street.
- End-to-end at all integration for public safety and justice systems levels of government.
Microsoft CityNext solutions empower municipal organizations to overcome threats from both criminal activity and natural disasters. To meet growing demands for citizen-centric services, public safety agencies must become more coordinated, integrated, and streamlined. CityNext offers solutions that take advantage of a range of technologies, including cloud, Big Data, mobility, and social media, to engage citizens and improve operational effectiveness for safer communities around the world.
