Smart cities: Internet of things and artificial intelligence at the service of citizens

For years now it has been possible to hear about smart cities, or smart cities that are very likely to become the most popular urban model of the near future. It is possible to hear about it mainly in the political sphere when the concept is used to present industrial and urban development plans that can improve the urban planning of metropolises. But smart cities are much more than we might think. It is not correct to regard this new model as a purely digitised solution to everyday problems; it is true that smart cities take advantage of the connectivity and intelligent systems to improve the citizen’s experience, but a smart city is such as it provides to look for solutions also from the environmental point of view to achieve an urban development eco-sustainable. 

We will therefore talk about cities entirely covered by WIFI networks, roads designed specifically for self-driving cars, but also smog-eating panels and car or bike sharing services aimed at improving connectivity within the urban network.

If at the top of the 2016 charts the smartest city in Italy was considered Bologna, after two years the Smart City Index, that is the report that studies and analyzes the Italian cities and compiles a classification of those considered the most intelligent on the national territory, overturns all expectations and moves to the first place the metropolis of Milan. Bologna maintains a position of value by positioning itself in third place after Turin, which stands out for the diffusion, on public transport, of the fixed broadband, but also for the investments and the consequent increase of places voted to the so-called "new economy" and the creation of start-ups. Despite the fact that other cities like Rome and Florence are lower in the standings (according to the Smart City Index 2018 respectively in seventh and eighth place), the mobilization towards the front of intelligent cities in Italy is growing exponentially and to the city of Rome, for example, despite the delays in the implementation of the urban system, the primacy of administrative transparency towards its citizens is recognised. The progress in Italy does not stop mainly because the smart cities, as recognized also by a study reported in the daily newspaper the Sole 24 ore, are also the most friendly cities and where you live better.

According to an all-recent study called The Smart City breakaway, it amounts to 153 the amount of cities provided with a strategy to create smart cities around the world. Among them, eight cities in particular are in a very advanced state of urban implementation. For example, we are talking about London (in the United Kingdom) or Vienna (in Austria), or the city of Saint Albert (in Canada). Vienna ranks first among the world’s smartest cities, as confirmed by the renowned Mercer study and the index studied by the American climatologist Boyd Cohen. It is not only the ever higher quality of life that confers in Vienna the title of the perfect place to live, the city wins the title thanks to the efficiency of the infrastructure and to the ever more avant-garde mobility; Take, for example, the Vienna City Bike Service, a public transport system that allows citizens to move around the streets of Vienna by bicycle. Not to mention the free WIFI network in many areas of the city and the various services, apps and websites, which help tourists to plan their visit of the city more easily. These and other solutions, such as the smog-eating panels that cover the walls of housing in Mexico, make the metropolis a smart and pleasant city to live in. 

The Smart Cities EXPO World Congress is a world-wide event that brings together talents of all nationalities to present innovative solutions for urban implementation. The event is dedicated to creating a better future for cities and their citizens in every part of the world, through the promotion of innovations designed for eco-sustainability and technological development. This year will participate in the new edition, which will be held in Barcelona from 18 to 20 November, two of the most important high schools in Italy: Polo Tecnologico in Pordenone and ISIA in Rome together with ICE - Italian Trade Agency. The event aims to create a situation of exchange and research in which entrepreneurs, designers and researchers can propose new ideas to improve the living conditions of metropolitan areas, also through contamination between the skills of each professional figure.

For the creation of a smartcitizeship, that is to say an intelligent citizenship status, it is essential that every citizen has the opportunity to access his or her own data everywhere and feel safe in sharing them. The smart cities are still evolving and some anthropic risks (malfunctions, cybercrime and terrorism, etc.) and natural (blackouts, climatic events, earthquakes, etc...) mean that some systems are still considered vulnerable. For this reason, scholars from all over the world are investing time and energy in the research and development of studies aimed at improving the smart systems of the cities of the future. We know that a smart metropolis is defined as such when investments in social, economic and human capital fuel sustainable and unstoppable growth through careful management of natural resources, and especially when the action of the government actively involves the citizens living in the cities in question. 

There are easily accessible systems which allow, for example, an astronomical amount of data to be analysed in a very short time. We are talking about Techmakers, the software platform that provides useful products in the digital world of the Internet of things that can record economic forecasts and identify repeated patterns over time. Among these, Rotilio, an excellent service for companies that is able to calculate the break and work times of the machines and optimizes the production costs by monitoring consumption daily.