Page 41 - U4SSC Simple ways to be smart

social strata, including diverse backgrounds, cultures and disciplines, vulnerable persons, persons
with disabilities, ethnic minorities, women, children, geriatrics, refugees and other categories facing
potential exclusion, discrimination, abuse, human rights violations and marginalization.

3.3.2 Making people smarter

The challenge for cities is to ensure that residents can fully participate in the smart city. For some
cities, this begins with ensuring that basic needs are met and that residents are healthy. People
who are sick or who are struggling to meet their basic needs are less likely to have the interest or
energy to devote to engaging as residents.

The Smart Healthy Citizen (SHC) program focuses on knowledge and practice of nutrition and
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exercise as fundamental to people’s health. It also supports emotional development, digital skills
and encourages a good media diet. The program provides a website and interactive platform,
supported by a blog and social media. Smart Healthy Citizen has been able to transform a city’s way
of working and empower people to be smart. The first pilot program in Córdoba, Spain brought
together different spheres of the city, to work inter-sectorally, in a challenge: to reduce by 10% the
number of overweight children in the population. Through education and technology solutions
the program achieved a 14.5% reduction in BMI in 9 months. As a result, an ambitious study on
intelligent education and being overweight was carried out.
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The Smart Healthy Citizen program puts people at the centre, offering organizational and
educational alternatives that empower self-care and are particularly relevant in the COVID 19
crisis. It is a model that is now being adopted in Andalusia, Spain and should be easy to adapt
for other cities. The success of the program is not the technology, but the multidisciplinary work,
where doctors, teachers, mayors, merchants and associations, work together for a common cause:
health and childhood.

Where levels of digital literacy are low, cities need to work together with educational organisations
to ensure that residents learn not only how to use technology, but also to use it thoughtfully. Digital
literacy is more than just computer skills, it encompasses an understanding of online security,
ethics and conventions. In some circumstances, developing digital literacy begins with ensuring
that people have access to services as simple as electricity, and the opportunity to use technology.
Case 5 discusses how the city of Johannesburg in South Africa has been increasing access as part
of its smart city plans.

The outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020 led to people globally having to engage using virtual meetings,
e-learning and remote working. Schools had to operate online, many people worked from home,
and municipal offices are delivered services digitally. This experience has highlighted efficiencies
and environmental benefits, which make it likely that such practices will continue in the future. The
challenge with digital work is ensuring that inclusion is fostered and that the digital tools can be
used collaboratively rather than only for one-directional communication. Great strides were made

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