Page 206 - Shaping smarter and more sustainable cities - Striving for sustainable development goals

Finally, through technology transfer programs and partnerships with the private sector, universities,
research organizations & specialized bodies can also be a source of innovation for the private sector,
and promote new business creation in the form of spin offs.

4.10 Citizens and citizen organizations

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Citizens are the key to transform a digital city into a smart city. Citizens are the ultimate users of
SSC services, covering the associated costs via taxes or, in some cases, via fees. Therefore, it is
important that they are informed on the features and the benefits of each of those services, so they
can value them. Without achieving this, citizens could perceive SSC projects as an unnecessary
expenditure, rather than as a proper investment of their taxes.
The value of the citizens' role can be viewed from multiple perspectives: as a source of data, the
concept of citizen as a sensor of local/real‐time information, as a source of ideas through citizen
participation mechanisms, as a receiver of information and as end users of city services.

We can find many examples of the citizen's as sources of data, including the use of ICT applications
that, with the user permission, gather data from the sensors embedded in smartphones to identify
issues such as the state of the road , or that allow users to report incidents on the street. Data
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mining from social networks allows to predict events, or to learn the opinion of the population on
key issues and even automated sensors to collect environmental parameters that anyone can install
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at home. There is a lot of innovation taking place in this field, with new applications and projects
appearing every day and allowing citizens to contribute to make their cities more sustainable.
Citizen participation is key to enable a citizen‐centred approach in cities. Technology can be of help
to carry out mass opinion surveys and participatory processes, but it is important to ensure that
everyone can participate. This can be achieved by providing means of participation to sectors of the
population that may not have easy access to communication technologies like the elderly or
economically constrained sections of the population.

Citizen as information receivers and users of services refer to information from the city such as real
time traffic state, the public transport timetables and safety alerts, to name a few.
It is important to emphasize that the citizen is the final user of the city and the city services, and
therefore, it is who will benefit from a shift towards a smarter, more sustainable urban model.

4.11 Urban planners

Urban planners develop plans and programs for the use of land in cities. Their plans help create
communities, accommodate population growth, and revitalize physical facilities in towns, cities,
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counties, and metropolitan areas.
Urban planners are key actors for smart sustainable cities. In some instances, these stakeholders
perceive smart city strategies with some degree of reluctance and scepticism due to the dominant
role given to technology over other city dimensions. To most planners, the lack of understanding of

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48 Overview and Role of ICT in Smart Sustainable Cities. Technical Report WG1 FG on SSC.

49 Street Bump http://streetbump.org/about
50 Repara Ciudad http://reparaciudad.com/
51 Smart Citizen Kit http://smartcitizen.me/pages/sck
52 http://www.bls.gov/ooh/life‐physical‐and‐social‐science/urban‐and‐regional‐planners.htm#tab‐2

196 ITU‐T's Technical Reports And Specifications