What is a Smart City? | Business and Politics - video Dailymotion

The Manila Times

What is a Smart City? | Business and Politics  Dr. Nathaniel “Dinky” Von Einsiedel, an urban development and management specialist, talks about what comprises a Smart city. He says smart cities could be an urban city or town that adapts information and communications technology (ICTs) to enhance services and overall efficiency. These could include, smart energy, smart traffic signaling among others.   Subscribe to The Manila Times Channel - https://tmt.ph/YTSubscribe   Visit our website at https://www.manilatimes.net   Follow us:  Facebook - https://tmt.ph/facebook  Instagram - https://tmt.ph/instagram  Twitter - https://tmt.ph/twitter  DailyMotion - https://tmt.ph/dailymotion   Subscribe to our Digital Edition - https://tmt.ph/digital   Check out our Podcasts:  Spotify - https://tmt.ph/spotify  Apple Podcasts - https://tmt.ph/applepodcasts  Amazon Music - https://tmt.ph/amazonmusic  Deezer: https://tmt.ph/deezer  Stitcher: https://tmt.ph/stitcher Tune In: https://tmt.ph/tunein  #TheManilaTimes

Transcript

00:00 Dr. Von Isendal, I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly.

00:02 Maybe I should refer to you as just Dinky, if that's okay.

00:06 Yes, yes please.

00:07 Thank you for making time for Business and Politics, sir.

00:10 Well, thank you for inviting me.

00:11 Well, you know, when I saw you at the Manila Times Sustainable Forum, you were giving a

00:17 talk on sustainable, you know, smart cities and talking about sustainability and the other

00:22 aspects of that.

00:24 I felt that, you know, as I said then, that we were just scratching the surface of a very

00:30 complicated subject matter.

00:31 So maybe before we start, maybe we should understand first, you know, from a technical

00:37 sample, what qualifies as a smart city?

00:41 Okay, well, a smart city is a territory.

00:45 It doesn't have to be a city.

00:46 It can be a municipality.

00:49 It can be a district, part of a city.

00:52 Or it can be a province.

00:54 That adopts certain technologies, ICT technologies, to improve the delivery of services of that

01:04 city.

01:05 So it could be applied to waste management, to traffic management, to land use planning.

01:14 There's a wide range of opportunities where the technologies could be applied.

01:19 So when a city adopts such technologies, then it's referred to as a smart city.

01:26 I see.

01:27 Is there a body that, you know, designates a city or an area as a smart city?

01:35 In the Philippines, we don't have one.

01:38 Globally, there are organizations that get together cities that are supposedly smart.

01:49 I see.

01:50 And they document what the cities are doing, and they share the information with a large

01:57 number of other cities.

02:00 So there's some kind of like an association of smart cities.

02:04 And interestingly, a lot of them are developed, coming from developed countries.

02:11 I see.

02:12 We were talking earlier, before we started it, you said that Seoul is an example of one.

02:19 Yes.

02:20 Seoul is one.

02:21 And also, what is considered to be the very first smart city is actually a place named

02:30 Songdo.

02:31 Okay.

02:32 Which is actually Incheon.

02:33 Okay.

02:34 In South Korea.

02:35 Where it's near the airport.

02:38 Okay.

02:39 And it was developed from scratch.

02:41 I see.

02:42 And they applied all of the smart technologies that was available to them.

02:47 So smart energy, smart traffic signaling, smart everything.

02:54 And that was actually the model that was used for the new Clark City.

02:59 I see.

03:00 So we were involved in the conceptualization of the new Clark City.

03:04 Okay.

03:05 And we traveled to Songdo to take a look at that city and see what kind of technologies

03:11 they adopted.

03:12 And kind of got a briefing from the technology providers, electricity, water supply, traffic

03:21 management, waste management, et cetera, et cetera.

03:24 And very, very impressive, but then also very, very expensive.

03:28 I see.

03:29 And it seems like only the wealthiest cities can afford it.

03:34 But you were mentioning during your talk that even Bogo City, is that a city in Cebu?

03:41 Yes.

03:42 You were saying had made some interesting investments.

03:44 Could you talk about that?

03:46 Well, Bogo, from what I understand, I haven't been there.

03:52 I just read about it.

03:53 I see.

03:54 Okay.

03:55 So Bogo was a winner of the Digital Governance Awards, which is given by the Department of

04:03 Information Communication Technology.

04:05 Right.

04:06 And Bogo, from what I understand, invested in the laying down of fiber optics as an investment

04:16 of the city government.

04:17 Fantastic.

04:18 Because they wanted to attract investors to come.

04:21 I see.

04:22 Because they knew that connectivity was going to be a major attraction.

04:28 And they did not have that.

04:29 So they decided to invest in laying down the fiber optics.

04:34 I see.

04:35 Now, you're very much involved in the Galing Puok Awards.

04:39 Is Bogo sort of an outlier, or is it just becoming more common in the cities in the

04:45 Philippines based on your work on the Galing Puok?

04:49 Well, the Digital Governance Awards is a DICT-DILG collaboration together with the

05:00 National ICT Council.

05:03 Okay.

05:04 And so they have this annual award.

05:07 The Galing Puok Awards is a different kind of an award.

05:10 Right.

05:11 It's sort of a governance?

05:12 Yeah.

05:13 The Galing Puok is more of governance in general, whether you use technology or not.

05:19 I see.

05:20 In the case of the Digital Governance Awards, it's very specific.

05:24 And Bogo is a winner in that award.

05:29 But I have not come across Bogo in the Galing Puok Awards.

05:33 So I'm not sure.

05:35 Maybe it's just that they did not apply for the award.

05:38 But there is a kind of a parallelism between the two awards.

05:42 I see.

05:43 And when we now speak of governance, e-governance has become quite popular.

05:49 In fact, that's how the Digital Governance Awards started.

05:53 I see.

05:54 In 2012, it was known as the e-governance awards.

05:59 And so they were recognizing LGUs, towns and cities, that were adopting digital technology

06:07 to improve the services of the towns or cities.

06:11 And some of them have applied to the Galing Puok for the Galing Puok Awards.

06:16 I see.

06:17 Quezon City, for example, has been winning a number of times Galing Puok Awards.

06:22 In fact, they are a finalist again this year.

06:27 And it's also a digital technology that they've adopted.

06:31 They've adopted also similar technologies to some of their other services in the past

06:36 years.

06:40 It's becoming quite popular, the adoption of smart technologies.

06:44 And it's interesting that you mentioned the governance aspect of it.

06:48 Because we were talking earlier that there's a convergence, isn't there, in pursuing smart

06:54 city technologies and fighting corruption.

06:59 Because there is virtually no, I suppose, personal contact anymore.

07:04 It's all done online.

07:05 Yeah, that's right.

07:07 I mean, one of the reasons or the rationale for the promotion of e-governance is to promote

07:16 contactless transactions.

07:20 So that people can do applications online.

07:23 They don't need to go to the office.

07:26 As you know, previously people go to an office and then you get fixers to do things for you.

07:35 By adopting a digital technology and doing things online, you avoid that kind of a person-to-person

07:43 transaction.

07:44 Now, the thing is, there also is some difficulty involved when the number of documents that

07:52 are required need to be complied with.

07:56 So for example, if you're applying for a building permit, for example, where you need to submit

08:02 plans, it can get pretty complicated.

08:06 Because if there are questions about the plans, it's not that easy to do it online.

08:13 It's very tedious when you have to go through the details of a building, for example, and

08:18 you find that a particular aspect of the air conditioning system or the plumbing system

08:24 is not up to standard.

08:28 It's not that easy to do the transactions online.

08:31 So there are also limitations to it.

08:34 I see.

08:35 Now, are we far away from maybe having smart cities like Incheon?

08:40 I know you said you work with Clark.

08:43 That's a possible area.

08:44 You mentioned Quezon City.

08:45 And I think also you mentioned Makati during your talk at the Manila Times.

08:51 Yes.

08:52 Well, we're moving in that direction.

08:55 More and more cities, Philippine cities, are adopting smart technologies.

09:01 But insofar as really becoming a smart city in the complete sense of the word, I would

09:08 say we're still a little bit far off.

09:12 I would, as I mentioned in my presentation also the last time, I consider Rio de Janeiro

09:21 as a smart city.

09:24 They have 24/7 surveillance of the city with 500 employees monitoring what's happening

09:33 in real time.

09:35 And they provide the services in such a wide range of areas, from health, predictive policing,

09:48 disaster prevention, emergency.

09:51 Everything that you need to run the city.

09:53 Everything that you would expect a city to do.

09:57 They have the technology.

09:59 They have the control system.

10:01 They have all the screens.

10:02 They have all the maps.

10:03 They have all the data.

10:05 And one click and everything comes.

10:08 So the decision making becomes speedier and it's database.

10:13 And this is what I think a smart city should be.

10:17 Now, the cities that have won the digital governance awards have been kind of very concentrated

10:24 on very specific areas of service.

10:28 Like for example, safe vaccination.

10:32 I mean it's a very focused kind of service and it addresses the services of one hospital.

10:42 So it's a smart city technology, but it has a very limited kind of application.

10:49 So that's why I was saying we're a little bit still far off from what I would think

10:55 to be a comprehensive kind of smart city application.

10:59 [ Silence ]

11:07 [ Music ]

What is a Smart City? | Business and Politics

Category

Transcript

Recommended