Page 15 - Guide for smart and sustainable city leaders: Envisioning sustainable digital transformation

Guide for smart and sustainable city leaders: Envisioning sustainable digital transformation

2 Smart sustainable cities: What is the role of digital

transformation?

The digital revolution is supporting the transition of cities into smart and sustainable cities, as
emerging technologies such IoT, artificial intelligence, blockchain and big data analytics, are
rapidly disrupting every sector and have the potential to transform city operations if deployed,
managed and governed appropriately. On the other hand, digital transformation in cities is not
just about digitizing new records or automating processes using digital technologies, it also
involves decommissioning legacy systems and migrating data to new systems, as well as culture
change. It is about automating processes and interactions and delivering services virtually.

Digital Transformation has been viewed as a key process that can be facilitated through the
implementation of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to support countries
in becoming smarter and more sustainable.

However, the establishment of smart sustainable cities in alignment with digital transformation
should not be limited to the adoption of technologies to solve operational problems. Echoing
the SDG 11, before embarking on a smart city transition, it is pertinent to develop a vision, which
would allow cities to leverage digital technologies to respond to the needs of all inhabitants,
across all verticals. Therefore, the responsible use of emerging technologies has the potential
to improve the quality and quantity of urban services, while reducing costs and delivering value
for all. Through the exploitation of identification, data capture, processing and communication
capabilities, technologies such as IoT can offer services to all kinds of applications, whilst
ensuring that security and privacy requirements are fulfilled.

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