NAN-H-137
Blueprint
By Chiazo Ogbolu
Lagos, Feb. 16, 2017(NAN) Mr David Alozie, an information technology entrepreneur, on Thursday urged government to have a blueprint that would enhance public understanding of the Smart City concept.
Alozie, who disclosed this during a media briefing in Lagos, said that the blueprint should be holistically led and implemented for public and private sector partnership.
According to him, smart cities are not a technology but are innovative and sustainable cities enhanced by technologies and it is not only governments business but everyone’s business.
“There is need for people to understanding that the Internet-of-Things and Smart Cities will play a huge role in accelerating achievements of the UN-SDG goals in Lagos.
“It is important the every citizen becomes aware of the technology concepts in order to adequately plug into the opportunities that Internet-of-Things (IoT) and Smart Cities might present,’’ Alozie said.
He listed some of the opportunities that abound with smart city as cutting cost for the individual and government, encouraging better interaction and personalised interaction with the government.
He noted that with the growing need to achieve higher efficiency and productivity at little or no cost, things needed to connect to internet to be monitored, controlled and for it to operate with less human interference.
Alozie said that the adoption of Smart City initiative would help to monitor the high level of population and urbanisation, climate change and environmental sustainability.
He said that it would also help in serving citizens better, promote citizen participation in the running of a city and aid in technology advancement.
He listed some components of Smart City to consist of the following smart sectors; smart transportation: optimising traffic, road, vehicular movements; smart security- security camera, facial recognition, phone/citizen detection.
Others he listed as smart energy, water and waste, enhancing efficiency and management of power, water and waste, smart government (e-government); enabling platform for better government-citizen interaction and services.
Others include smart manufacturing, education, tourism and leisure, buildings, homes and estates, smart retails and logistics and smart finance and banking.
He said that a smart city required smart citizens, citizenship awareness of opportunities and participation, revamping of sectors to become smart, like homes, waste management, security, water management, power management and efficiency.
Alozie urged government to tackle some of the challenges of Smart Cities that concern the public such as a shift in the labour market, security and privacy concerns, scalability of crime.
He listed others as building talents, skills and advanced knowledge to fuel up innovations and smart technology solutions, possible lack of even access to benefits of Smart Cities.
Listed also were building reliable smart cities systems to reduce economic effects.
“Smart cities are not tool that take away people’s paid employment, but it is dawn of new business and job opportunities.
“It is not ready made but a journey and process that takes years, so there cannot be smart cities without you the public.
“It is required that everyone participate in the building of Smart Cities in Lagos and in Nigeria because Smart Cities will generate great volume and now the world is moving from seeing wealth as oil or cash,’’ he said.
Alozie is also the convener of the Disruptive Africa Expo Community supported by the Lagos State Ministry of Science and Technology. (NAN)
CAN/COO/GY
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Edited by Cecilia Odey/Grace Yussuf