The Secret Sauce of a Successful Smart City – Austin Startups
This blog focuses on the “secret sauce” that turns the idea of a smart city into reality — the people who live in the city, who work in the city and the people who have hopes and dreams for the kind of city they will leave for future generations.
Not so many years ago the idea of a smartwatch you could listen to music on or monitor your heart rate with would have seemed far-fetched. Moreover, using your smartphone to find a parking spot and pay for it? Alternatively, a smart card that means no more waiting in lines for tokens when you ride the subway?
Smart technologies are portrayed as a means to streamline, optimize, integrate, digitalize, systematize, consolidate and otherwise improve infrastructure. The high penetration rate of new technologies in all the activities of everyday life is fostering a destructive practice — namely for any new societal challenge you only need to apply a ICT solution. This approach ignores the universal experiences and diverse needs of — guess who? The people, that’s right, the citizens that reside in smart cities.
A new mindset and best practice of successful smart cities is to ensure you’re building two-way communications with their citizens and creating stronger initiatives as a result.
Question: How to bring all city stakeholders together to develop a vision for the city they want to live in — and the one they want their children and grandchildren to live in.
Answer: It’s about making inclusion, listening and reaching out — and oftentimes it’s about a new mindset at city hall that is more open, more transparent and more focused on accessibility and inclusion for all citizens, including people with disabilities. The Secret Sauce of a Successful Smart City – Austin Startups
