Category Archives: Smart cities
How local and central governments work with community groups and citizens for better outcomes. An early example of ecosystem engagement.
NEOM’s ambition to be a cognitive city
Joseph Bradley describes himself as an applied futurist, author and cognitive city developer—not necessarily three [...]
How Matterport is digitising the built environment—and why it matters
Over the last year or so, as stay-at-home orders have come and gone around the [...]
How can cities use social media to engage more effectively post-pandemic?
Over the course of the pandemic, the realisation has grown among many people and businesses [...]
Bridging the digital divide: IFIP/IP3 and Rotary
The ‘digital divide’ between those with access to technology, and those without, is a huge [...]
How a pandemic accelerated the re-invention of a small community
Sant’Agata di Esaro, in Cosenza in Southern Italy, is not a name usually associated with [...]
Business lessons from tree cathedrals
In 1918, a man called Edmund Blyth returned from the battlefields of the First World [...]
How The Good Law Project is igniting participation in the legal landscape
New models of work and funding are changing business all around the world. Crowdsourcing in [...]
The genius of What Three Words
Three words can make a huge difference. Some would say that three-word combinations are amongst [...]
Are digital channels redefining connected societies?
It is sometimes said that everything in life is connected by six or fewer steps. [...]
Re-imagining sustainable urban life
What does urban life mean at the end of the second decade of the 21st [...]
AI in government: how public sector work will change
There has been a lot written about how AI will change the world of work. [...]
E-residency – the way forward for digital nomads?
Large numbers of workers around the world are now self-identified or de facto digital nomads. [...]
Increasing role of artificial intelligence in city administration
Cities can use artificial intelligence and analysis of data in a number of ways to [...]
How AWS picked the 2016 winning cities of ‘City on a Cloud’
Regular readers of this website will know that we are big fans of awards, particularly [...]
Copenhagenize Design Company: designing for cycling
If you lived in London or Paris ten or twenty years ago and you cycled [...]
Smart City Berlin: a hub for innovation
Berlin has embraced ‘smart’ in a big way. Starting from the idea that open data [...]
Digital Dublin: innovation for economic sustainability
Sometimes you could be forgiven for thinking that becoming a Smart City was a goal [...]
Why violence is a symptom, not a cause of failing cities
We are enjoying one of the most peaceful periods in history. Global violence is at [...]
The safest cities in the world
What is the safest city in the world in which to live? According to a [...]
Award Spotlight: Barcelona and the Juniper Smart City Rankings
Which is the Smartest City in the world in 2015? According to Juniper Research, that [...]
Siemens Green City Index: measuring environmental sustainability
More than 80% of the population of the Americas, and 70% of that in Europe, [...]
Do smart cities need smart people?
Cities. Gleaming high rise office blocks, centres of technology and industry, and trade hubs. But [...]
The Global Open Data Initiative (GODI): sharing resources on how to use open data
The Global Open Data Initiative (GODI) is a coalition of civil society organisations sharing principles and resources [...]
Dubai: Smart City of the Future
The city of Dubai has ambitious plans. It plans to transform itself into a truly [...]
Financing smart city solutions
Smart cities hold out the lure of sustainability and innovative technological solutions to large, previously [...]
Measuring smart cities: key performance indicators for new technology
“What counts is what is measured.” We’ve all heard this, and however much you may [...]
UIDAI – the biggest ID project in the world
The UK government has made much of its new ‘verify’ site, part of the government as [...]
Smart city lighting is becoming a reality
Smart Cities are a growing phenomenon, with cities around the world vying for supremacy. But [...]
Next Century Cities
We’ve heard and written a lot about smart cities in recent years. They are cities [...]
The global Smart City market: what’s it worth?
There has been much written about Smart Cities, but the field is quite light on [...]
Cognicity: the city of the future, realised today
Where Barcelona leads, London is keen to follow. It’s not often that you’ll read those [...]
The importance of agility in the public sector
Mario Devargas, former CIO for a police force and a large council, talked at the [...]
Sense of place: shaping the future of the public sector
Data almost always has some geographical element tied to it, whether it’s polling figures, or [...]
Government as a platform
At IP EXPO this week we heard Liam Maxwell, the UK Government’s CTO, discuss the [...]
Will we be seeing more private planned cities?
Palava, near Mumbai in India, is unlike most other cities. For a start, it’s a [...]
How Glasgow’s smart city investments play out in the games
As the Commonwealth Games get under way in Glasgow this week, visitors to the city [...]
The best cities in which to live: Mercer Quality of Living Survey
Which city in the world offers the best quality of living? According to the 2014 [...]
Cities: the Bloomberg Mayors’ Challenge
Cities are a vital part of the world’s infrastructure. Generating growth and prosperity, but also [...]
How Romania has used the ECDL to accelerate public sector ICT
We’ve discussed some of the challenges of central government in terms of ICT, for example, [...]
Cloud computing takes off in central government
We’ve written before about a number of cities across the globe moving to cloud computing [...]
Joint development of public e-services in Sweden
Are electronic services in public administration a case of putting ‘lipstick on a pig’, or [...]
The quest for resilience in cities
Most of us are familiar with the concept of Smart Cities, and their potential. But [...]
Transforming service delivery with cloud based information hub
One of the biggest challenges for local government administrators is the integration of services provided [...]
City administration technology trends survey
It is an exciting time to be part of a city administration team. The proliferation [...]
How will the collaborative economy will drive public services?
When we started this journey to rank and rate cities on contextual use of technology, [...]
Online Open Government
Does ‘online open government’ sound like a tautology or, worse, a myth? As private citizens, [...]
Event review – TEDCity2.0
TEDCity2.0 was a day-long event which took place on 20th September 2013. It brought together [...]
Smart Cities: a progress report building on Bilbao
In November 2005, a World Summit of Local Authorities on the Information Society was held [...]
Will the Internet of Things(IoT) drive greater sustainability?
We believe that one of the most interesting ideas emerging from discussions about sustainable cities [...]
Seoul leads again
Seoul recently topped our ranking of tech-enabled cities, and we’re not the first to give [...]
How technology is enabling more cost-effective city administration
We hear a lot about how technology can help individuals and businesses to manage better, [...]
Project review: ranking intelligent communities
Intelligent communities? An odd term perhaps, but one which is becoming increasingly relevant, particularly in [...]
The future is cities
The future lies in cities. There are very few people who would argue with that, [...]
20 Of The Best Cities In The World For Telecommuting
Why do telecommuting professionals choose to live in some of the most expensive cities in [...]
Seoul tops our ranking of tech-enabled cities
Over the past six months, we have been gathering data on how cities and towns [...]
Open source software maturity in public services
One of our key research objectives is to open a dialogue with government and business [...]
Open source is ready for prime time. Are government IT policies?
As we discuss open source policy with a number of government officials, a remarkable pattern [...]
European Government is Failing to Effectively Utilise OSS
A report published in October 2011 by the London School of Economics for the UK [...]
The Four Commandments of Cities
Eduardo Paes, the mayor of the city of Rio de Janeiro, believes that mayors really [...]
Law enforcement must keep up with social media tactics
Throughout 2012 police forces around the world have started embracing social media to mostly positive [...]
Connected City Index
Most discussions about IT in government have revolved around the big issues, usually impacting federal [...]
Does WordPress for cities re-align the benchmark?
Last November, WordPress launched WordPress.com/cities as the one-stop solution to start a site for cities [...]
Award spotlight: Excellence in eGovernment
Australia’s Excellence in eGovernment Awards recognise the most outstanding initiatives in eGovernment across five ICT [...]
What’s next for e-government?
We are looking for 100 government practitioners to join our panel to provide feedback on [...]
Why public sector line managers need to understand APIs
Conversations with public sector line managers over the past few weeks have highlighted the huge [...]
Will Salesforce.com’s presence on G-Cloud alter buying dynamics?
Six weeks ago, Salesforce.com joined the UK government’s G-Cloud. This initiative allows government agencies to [...]
What do public agencies expect from cloud computing?
Cloud technology constitutes a change in computing and knowledge management, with hosted IT services delivered [...]
Spotlight on Code for America
We are big fans of TEDTalks. If you have not visited the site, it works [...]
Award spotlight: 2012 City 2.0 from TED
While it is normal for tech awards to focus on the achievements of IT teams, [...]
2012 Global Cities Index and Emerging Cities Outlook
The backbone of our research and analysis is the Digital City Index. As part of [...]
Award spotlight: KLISS
Kansas Legislative Information System and Services was the recipient of the 2012 NASCIO Award for [...]
Case review: Transforming IT at Bundesagentur für Arbeit
Transitioning from legacy systems to an infrastructure that can support the way work needs to [...]
WEF Global Competiveness Report
As we start constructing our ranking of public sector productivity gains, existing analyses of the [...]
“We’re not going to fix government until we fix citizenship”
Watching saved TED talks is now among the most productive things on can do when [...]
Trends driving our research agenda
Faced with budget constraints, governments at all levels are taking a hard look at how [...]