Smart Cities & The Internet of Things (IoT)

A useful map of IoT startups and companies put together by Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino (@iotwatch) founder of the Good Night Lamp & co-organiser of the Internet of Things Meetup in London (@iotlondon). 

In case you'd like to add to this, Alex has provided a form: 

https://designswarm.typeform.com/to/laEzXM

Josep Ramon Ferrer, Barcelona's Smart City director, sees these innovations as part of an inevitable progression. Just as the public couldn't imagine being in an urban environment where there is no water, electricity, or sewers, he says, in the future, it will be inconceivable not to have smart technology.

The idea is to reduce the number of cars in a city -- and that would free up the space used for parking, for example. More parks! And easy to find parking spaces for the fewer cars in circulation.

It's such a smart idea -- wouldn't you use them if you lived in such a city? I would -- most definitely.

This is the first in Sue Lebeck's four-part series "Previewing the possible for smart cities.

Standards, prestandards and potential future standards relevant to the smart cities of the future are emerging — through new paradigms, city-centric networks, alliances and consortia and certification bodies. The best practices and more that arise from these efforts will provide or inform the standardization which will lead us to our 21st century new normal for cities.

This brief compilation of emerging standards reveals the breadth of the smart city subject, the value of collaboration, the opportunities for innovation and the potential for 21st century transformation.

Starting with the ICT enablers that drive smart cities, this multi-part sampling will touch also upon energy, water, transportation, the built environment, carbon and climate, resilience, community, materials and food, finance and economic development, city business and measurement indicators.

Amsterdam isn’t the first city to implement smart lighting as a gateway to a large smart-grid initiative. Paris is in the early stages of a 10-year effort to bring intelligence to a complex network of street lighting, traffic signals and related controls, part of an effort to upgrade Paris’ electricity grid and, like Amsterdam, turn Paris into a “smart city.”

“I think more and more cities are looking for what we call a killer app, an application that justifies the investment,” said Wim Elfrink of Cisco. “In Barcelona, it looks to be parking services. Paris has chosen lighting. That is one of the things we have to find out in the next six months: What are the unique Amsterdam problems?”

Discussing Smart Cities, we're always looking for ways to improve transport systems. That is one reason why I've included this most timely article from Silicon Valley, the home of innovation, where everyone drives, and public transport is difficult. Beyond trams, trains and light rail, we should stop building new roads, listen to citizens, develop transit hubs, access real time information. etc...

Can the home of new car companies such as Tesla, this cradle of technology, of startups and the VCs who fund them, be a showplace for efficient, modern, cheap and clean public transportation? That would be a Silicon Valley achievement.

Boyd Cohen's new city rankings survey has been revised to 62 indicators; of those 16 directly overlap with the new ISO sustainable cities standard.

The Index has also been expanded this year to include 25 countries from all four regions of the world, selected on the basis of their 2014 Innovation Cities Index Score.

Are these the 100 smartest cities?

 If you have questions, contact bcohen@udd.cl.

If we demand context and facts instead of dumb numbers, the biggest legacy of the internet of things will be a world that is more transparent and democratic.

The network effect—when each new user of a product makes its value higher. Think of the telephone a century ago. The greater the number of people who used Bell’s invention, the more valuable it became to all of them.