Page 110 - Enhancing innovation and participation in smart sustainable cities
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United for Smart Sustainable Cities
Enhancing Innovation and Participation
Conclusion
Working Group 3 (WG3) discussions and case studies unequivocally reveal the importance of innovation and
participation in smart sustainable cities. The following conclusions are based on the deliberations and work carried
out by WG3.
Enhancements in innovation and participation have a far-reaching positive impact on society, economy
and the environment.
The diffusion and uptake of ICT-based digital technologies enable tremendous opportunities for changing
the way that cities are governed and the way the public sector functions and delivers services.
Public services should be digitally provided in a convenient, easy-to-use manner anytime and anywhere,
easing the lives of individuals and businesses residing in the city.
Public services should be provided effectively and efficiently by digitizing, streamlining, simplifying and
redesigning public sector processes.
Public services should target high levels of digital adoption (uptake) by realizing the potential of digital
public services while boosting the return on investments for digital transformation.
Smart sustainable cities should consider providing shared services / solutions in order to create
operational efficiencies through savings in public funds. They can create significant fiscal advantages for
public sector organizations by leveraging the synergies inherent in them.
Smart sustainable cities should provide open data to enable easy and convenient access to city
information; and to also encourage innovation and value creation by various constituents of the city,
including public and private sectors, as well as academia and NGOs.
Smart sustainable cities should formulate and implement policies and initiatives to achieve high levels of
inclusive and sustainable economic growth.
Policies and regulations supporting innovation and entrepreneurship will be conducive to economic
growth, resulting in added economic value. Smart sustainable cities should target removing barriers and
impediments to innovation and entrepreneurship in order to enable new products and processes, new
companies and business models, and new industries and sectors, which in turn will enhance economic
competitiveness. Successful innovation will also create new job opportunities and help reduce
unemployment rates in cities.
Smart sustainable cities should devise creative and alternative smart financing mechanisms; they should
explore these alternatives through close collaboration between public and private sectors, where
feasible.
Smart sustainable cities have an enormous opportunity to engage their citizens during the formulation,
design and even implementation of urban projects. Since most of these projects ultimately target citizens
in cities, participation and engagement of citizens will ensure early buy-in and will also increase the
likelihood of their success.
Smart sustainable city solutions ultimately address and meet the needs of people living in a city (as
consumers of solutions) and tend to have a fairly wide scope encompassing various economic, social and
daily activities. Furthermore, these solutions are formulated and provided by people working in related
public and private sector organizations (as providers of solutions). Hence, they are provided for the
people and by the people.
Smart sustainable cities should aim to equip its people with the right skills and capabilities to ensure their
wellbeing and economic prosperity as city residents.
Skills of people in cities are key enablers for smart sustainable cities. Rapid advances in technology and
innovation necessitate continuous skills refinement, enhancement and upgrading. Building an
appropriate pipeline of skills is essential to meet cities’ future skills needs to ensure sustainability.
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