Technology key for shaping the city of the future

Cisco, a worldwide leader in networking, showcased various solutions under the theme "Intelligent Networks Transform Your Business" at GITEX 2012, which was held here last week. The company demonstrated its various portfolios to show how organizations can harness the power of intelligent networks to simplify and speed up the deployment of current and future technologies to drive business transformation.
As local governments move away from asking "why" and "if" to the "when" and "how" in terms of sustainability programs to drive an agenda around economic growth and job creation in an environmentally sustainable manner, they are also looking at technology playing a more proactive role to drive the delivery of next-generation citizen services. Among the major driver for this change is the ongoing rapid rate of urbanization, which has serious implications for countries across three key growth parameters - economic, social and environmental, according to IDC White Paper.
The presentation of Wim Elfrink, Cisco's chief globalization officer, focused on "The role of Technology in Enabling Sustainable Growth."
In building a city of the future, IT will have an underlying role to play in the context of sustainable urbanization as well as the larger context of economic growth and environment sustainability.
The IDC Insight assesses Cisco's strategy to help governments deal with these pressing concerns with what it calls its Smart+Connected Communities (S+CC) initiative.
The moves by Cisco in this space align with what IDC calls "Intelligent X," defined as "a technology area that integrates smart devices connected by high-speed ubiquitous communications networks, requiring intelligent software and services to process, consolidate, and analyze data in order to transform industry-specific business processes."
According to the United Nations Population Division, 70 percent of the world's population is expected to be living in cities by 2050, up from approximately 50 percent in 2007 and 10 percent in 1900. This rapid rate of urbanization has serious implications for countries across the world, including:
• In terms of economic development, because the key focus for these migrants is to tap into some of the assumed economic prosperity that a city is a supposed to provide (i.e., they want to get a job)
• From a social perspective, because there is an expectation that these citizens will have access to better public services, such as housing, health, education, electricity, and running water, among others
• Perhaps most importantly for the long term, in terms of environmental impact, because people moving into cities consume more energy and emit more carbon.
So cities need to rethink the way that they develop their infrastructure to support this influx of people in a socially, economically, and environmentally sustainable model, according to IDC White Paper. A lot of the responsibility in this respect is shifting from central and regional governments to the local level, specifically to mayors, urban planners, and local councilors.
Unfortunately, historically, local governments across the world have treated technology as somewhat of an afterthought for the majority of these large projects, which means that successfully introducing ICT in a strategic fashion at this stage of the game will require a paradigm shift.
Fundamentally, however, there are massive infrastructure constraints out there, so ICT will have to play a much larger role in terms of delivering the next generation of citizen services.
The United Nations defines sustainable development as the "interdependent and mutually reinforcing pillars of economic development, social development, and environmental protection."
In the 21st century, these three pillars are becoming increasingly important for policy makers as they look to develop their economies in a more sustainable fashion.
IDC believes that in most potential implementations, the local telecom service providers (SPs) will play an integral role in providing the bandwidth and operational know-how needed to run a smooth, reliable and secure Intelligent X ecosystem of services.