Smart Cities – in three days

​

Representatives from over 110 cities worldwide, covering all regions of the world, participated in IEEE Smart Cities Futures Summit, hosted by IEEE and the Porter School of Environment & Earth Sciences at Tel Aviv University in Israel, for three days, December 13-15, 2022.

Speakers and the audience, with a total of 445 attendees (45% from Israel – and 65% global), revealed the rich landscape of smart cities as it takes shape through different lenses, from the viewpoint of global institutions (including the United Nations and European Commission), cities, government agencies, associations working on sustainability projects, industry (including industry leaders from corporate level to SMEs and startups), research, academia, and NGOs; each reflecting the needs – actually, the values and the preferences – of certain stakeholders. The broad view they provided is presented in this document, portraying the current state of smart cities in local and central governments, in the industry, in research, and with regard to data and big data.

The IEEE SCF Summit on “Sustainability in Action” was organized around key sustainability discussions on: Climate Crisis (climate change, disaster recovery and mitigation); Self-Sufficient Cities (water, energy, food, manufacturing, etc.); and Future Cities, Lives & Jobs (connectivity, mobility, education, healthcare, local economies, etc.).

Smart cities are not about a specific place, product, organization, or a solution. The term “Smart cities” refers to a movement that involves various approaches towards the implementation of digital services and data spaces. As a global movement, the new science of smart cities is relevant to almost any aspect of our life, from air and water, food and friends, floods and lighting, through mobility and security cameras, face recognition and surveillance, to geopolitics and the race for AI superiority.

When reflecting on the situational assessment for smart cities today, SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis is a useful framework for identifying and analyzing the matter of current actions and trends in the SC movement. Since participation at the conference enabled a tremendous breadth of issues, presenters and discussants covered almost every topic related to SC and made it possible to map the contents in terms of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats the smart city faces today.