Opinions

Cristiano Radaelli, Planet Smart City, looks at the role of sustainable, tech-enabled housing in future cities.

Trust is emerging as the number-one challenge when implementing smart city projects.

Microgrids transform urban energy into localised, efficient, resilient and sustainable systems, and investment in them will be critical to the future operation of the energy system, says Ian Lloyd, Strategic Growth Manager, Siemens.

Overarching strategies, funding approaches and business models all need to be adjusted if cities are to see a genuine return on their investment in smart city tech, says Itai Dadon, global head of smart cities at Itron.

New mobility options can improve the livability of cities but without the right strategy could have the polar opposite effect, say authors Giel Mertens and Rolf Bastiaanssen of Bax & Company, and Nico Larco of the University of Oregon.

Genetec’s Jean-Philippe Deby highlights critical factors that make a smart city a safe city too – these include communication and collaboration as well as technology.

A pioneering initiative between Georgia Power, the City of Atlanta and a team of technology partners, is showing the way to what’s next in smart cities and demonstrating the power of public-private partnerships. Austin Ashe, General Manager of Intelligent Cities at Current by GE, tells SmartCitiesWorld more about this ground-breaking project.

The speed at which 5G is deployed worldwide will have a significant impact on how soon it will become the defining technology of smart cities, says Babak Beheshti.

Modular construction, home-sharing platforms and rental tools could be the answer to housing challenges in the US, believes Nate Loewentheil of venture capital firm Camber Creek.

Shobhit Jain, Director of Product Innovation at HERE Technologies, shares his insights on how to succeed with public-private partnerships.