Page 6 - Guide for smart and sustainable city leaders: Envisioning sustainable digital transformation

Executive summary

With the advent of the fourth industrial revolution and global change processes, the world has
also embarked on journey of digital transformation by leveraging digital technologies to alter
the way economies function. In principle, the process of digital transformation encapsulates the
mechanism of initiating intrinsic technological revolutions across different sectors.

In the complex and interconnected urban ecosystems under increasing urbanization and climate
change, digital transformation holds the potential to disrupt the organizational capabilities of
the different verticals in cities. For initiating digital transformation, the adoption of new and
emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, Internet of things, digital twin and metaverse
remains one of the central pillars. While deploying these emerging technologies, it is also
important to consider how these solutions help address public problems and protect people's
rights to support a more inclusive and sustainable urban development process. When driving
digital transformation for supporting smart city transitions, it results in the intersection of the
virtual and physical environments of a city, which can impact the inhabitants and quality of
urban services being delivered. This makes initiating digital transformation in cities a process
to be undertaken with the utmost caution. In this context, cities need to ensure an ethical use of
technologies by maximizing transparency and inclusion through public participation to ensure
that people become contributors of digital solutions deployed to serve them.

This report identifies a broad set of relevant elements constituting digital transformation, while
underscoring the organizational capabilities and guidance for the development of smart and
sustainable cities through an eight-step cycle – revolving around smart city vision setting, the
implementation of international standards, and the monitoring of smart city progress. This report
is based on the Supplement 32 to ITU-T Y.4000 series – Smart sustainable cities – A guide for
city leaders.

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