Page 76 - U4SSC Simple ways to be smart

The best way to ensure that different agencies and departments can work together and that
technologies used are future-proof would be to adopt common standards for Smart City infrastructure
and information technologies. Such standards are useful to ensure interoperability of technology.
They also facilitate technology transfer and ensure comparability by defining common measures
for progress. The ITU’s Telecommunication Standardization Sector has developed standards to
support Smart City transformations through the ITU-T Study Group 20 on IoT and Smart Cities and
Communities.
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Standards relevant to smart cities include:

• ISO/TC 268 Sustainable cities and communities. 111
• IEC SyC Smart Cities. 112

• ITU-T Y.4000 series: Internet of things and smart cities and communities. 113

Smart solutions can be developed within the city, with the assistance of appropriate partners.
There are opportunities to discover and drive local innovation through government-supported
tech accelerators that help the private sector and residents to develop solutions to improve public
services. During the COVID-19 crisis, a local innovator in Barbados built a public health emergency
management application in just three weeks using web-based development tools. CivTech in
Scotland has pioneered such efforts, with companies developing minimum viable products in just
a few months, which can be used to attract investment and partnerships to develop the products
and move them to global markets.

5.3 Smart project success

The success of any smart initiative depends on how carefully the project is defined, clear objectives,
sound planning, including financial planning, the management of risks and challenges and having
clear and agreed indicators to measure outcomes.

Some of the factors that improve the chances of success in smart interventions include :
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Problem How problems are framed can affect effectiveness of solutions. For example, traffic
framing: congestion can be framed as “We need wider roads and more parking”, or as “We need
to get more people onto public transport”, or as “We need people living near where
they work”. Each of these will point to different solutions. Problem framing needs to be
discussed and negotiated with all city stakeholders
Political Many smart interventions span city functions and involve both internal and external
awareness: stakeholders, each of which may have different objectives, interests and expertise. To
succeed, smart interventions need to be sensitively designed and implemented with
political judgement.

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