Smart City in the Gigabit Society – Europe

September 18, 2018 – European society is rapidly becoming the Gigabit Society: the society of ultra-fast connections (and interconnections), in which the way of life of (smart) citizens becomes increasingly strongly influenced by artificial intelligence, virtual reality, connected objects, robotics.

In December 2017, global internet users passed the 4 billion mark. In Europe, internet users were 674 million, i.e. 80% of the total European population (source: Internet world stats). Citizens and businesses now expect government information to be readily available online, easy to find and understand, and at low or no cost. Governments have many reasons to meet these expectations by investing in a comprehensive public-sector digital transformation.

Smart Cities will transform our urban professional, recreational and living spaces through technological innovations and generate numerous business opportunities and possibilities for collaboration. The Smart City concept is a framing device, which is driving huge investment across a range of city services and infrastructure.

Digital transformations require changes, to both processes and IT systems that are more challenging to implement in the public sector than in the private sector. The Public Sector must cope with additional management issues, such as a complex ecosystem of multiple agencies and the challenge of maintaining strategic continuity even as political administrations change.

Central and Local Governments need help to respond effectively to this new wave of Digital Opportunities and capture them as they arise with an international outlook.

Gartner forecasts predicts that government Tech spending for software and IT Services will significantly grow in 2018-2022. In fact, software spending is projected to increase by 7.23% year-over-year and IT Services spending will increase to $38.6 billion in 2022.

Source: Gartner 2018 (Government & Education IT Spending 4Q 2017), Expr-ITL Elaborations, All data are in USD Currency

Street lamps lighting the way: the use of smart technologies for cities is expected to accelerate over the next 18 months

Expanding the smart grid: the savings resulting from smart street lighting can enable cities to invest in other smart technologies

A massive data increase will emerge from the fog/edge, something that could enhance the opportunity to translate them in economic value for city stakeholders

Analytics and Big Data will begin to play a more critical role as they are used to prove the value of Smart-City investments.

Involving the corporations: open IoT standards create new opportunities for private companies to be involved

European Public Sectors are set to see significant advancements in 2018, thanks to information and communication technologies (ICTs) designed to improve operations, services, and quality of life