Innovation and Tech Today Magazine
Smart Cities; Smart Citizens
Written By: Catherine Cunningham, PhD
Fall Edition
Main Contributors:Kiva Allgood is Vice President, Business Development, Qualcomm Technologies Inc. and leads Qualcomm’s smart cities initiative; Joseph Bousaba is Head of Qualcomm’s Internet of Things
So, what is the smartest city in the world? Your city, we hope! A smart city is not necessarily tall or short, big or small, remote or central. A smart city is one that is intelligently connected to optimize the quality of urban life for all. Isn’t that right? A smart city is one that follows the basic hierarchy of a thriving living, integrated ecosystem, one where resources (water-energy-waste) flow efficiently, where traffic is nearly non-existent, where manufacturing and production hubs are optimally coordinated, where commercial business centers share a distributed renewable energy resource, where neighborhoods, parks, and public spaces are safe and social (also virtually social), where governments have direct, real-time access to citywide information, so as to clip the wings of crime or catastrophe at its source. Science fiction? No, this is fast becoming the current reality for leading-edge world cities in the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance, for example, and for visionary companies like Qualcomm, as well their All Join Alliance, who are reinventing the urban landscape for tomorrow, today. ( See Innovation and Tech Today, Fall Edition for full article)