A smart city can be seen as an environment where technology supports cities in achieving their goals. Future Smart City is humane and data-driven. The success of a Smart City is measured by both individual-level well-being and community-level vitality indicators. These metrics and the data that affect them will be used to guide the future of the Smart City and the services it will provide.

There are numerous smart solutions that make operations more efficient or make it easier for citizens to interact with the city. However, this is not enough, or even the path cities should take. The focus ought to shift from implementing independent solutions towards creating an entire ecosystem: creating the framework for innovation, accelerating the commercialization of solutions, creating multifunctional solution together – and keeping the user at the center.

A Smart City requires infrastructure. However, big part of the infrastructure needed for intelligent solutions is generic and therefore useful for multiple solutions. As the pace of change increases, it is not efficient to create several similar functionalities simultaneously. Technology must not be a driver, it must be an enabler. A well-created digital infrastructure provides an opportunity to focus on the core competence of the ecosystem community: improving well-being and vitality.

The city and its employees are not alone in building the Smart City of the future, but the Smart City is built into an ecosystem in which different parties – the city, the citizens and the organizations operating in the city – interact with each other. Interaction is based on common standards that ensure equal treatment and effectively deliver benefits.

A Smart City is therefore humane and citizen-oriented above all. The data produced by different data sources ensures understanding citizens and enables creation of an ecosystem that industrializes service creation. In this way, a better citizen experience is achieved and the city is able to achieve its own goals.

Explore how CGI is helping Smart Cities & improving citizen services through secure, digital operations: https://www.cgi.com/en/government