White Paper | Sep 2012

Building Future Intelligent Cities For People SMU-TCS iCity Lab

A Singapore Management University and Tata Consultancy Services Partnership

Executive Summary Planning and designing of future cities is always

challenging as human societies are constantly transforming and our needs are changing with time. We are trying to build our future by anticipating our requirements from our past experiences. In all our endeavors, the goal is to build a city that is better than existing ones for the people who live there. Our vision for future cities should be one that is Efficient and Effective, Sustainable in using Natural resources, Livable with clean and eco-friendly environment, and with high levels of Residents’ happiness in meeting their social, economic and intellectual needs. In this age of technology, we include the phrase “Smart” or “Intelligent” in describing a future city. Often these approaches address the challenges of efficiencies and optimization of city services. Residents and Businesses will benefit from the cost savings and efficiencies of these technologies. This leads to better conservation of resources like using less fossil fuels to be more green, as we emit less by being more efficient and we create better sustainability by extending limited resources by using less over time. So far, we have concentrated on making an intelligent city through infrastructure, utilization of resources, urban design, sustainability and ecofriendliness. We believe that as cities are made for people, we should be the focus of future city design and in all the major themes of future cities; the human factor is the common denominator. We can argue that in all the key themes of future cities, people are the focal point. This is true and the designs of all these initiatives consider the residents of a city as the targeted customer. Often these are done in silos and the end customers get different messages from each of these initiatives. Alternatively, we can view this from the eyes of a resident in the future city.

Page 2 | Building Future Intelligent Cities for People

When we take this approach, the human is considered in a holistic manner and makes right choices in using intelligent city services. Consumption of electricity could be an example. We can deliver electricity to a resident with its efficiencies in generation and distribution, but when we include human factors, the residents will choose to use less electricity. This can be applied to all aspects of a city including healthcare, education, transportation etc. Human factors could include people’s value systems, social responsibilities, motivations, emotional support (or the lack of it), accountability and their cultural norms. These are the softer aspects of the population of the city and we should translate these characteristics into a city system. Integrating human factors into the design of future cities will ensure that it will be relevant to changing lifestyles, economic transformations and residents’ future expectations. As cities become competitive, a people friendly environment will be an attraction for talent and businesses. The rest of this paper will briefly describe an approach that we are taking to include human factors into the design of a future intelligent city.

Building Future Intelligent Cities - For People

Current Mega Trends Today, we are faced with many factors that we have

no historic references that can help us to plan for the future. Our human population is at the highest in history and growing, the rate of consuming non-renewable resources is at its highest and growing and electronic technologies have extended human capabilities in knowledge, communication and automation. Population density is high, especially in mega cities and with advance in medical technologies, people are living longer and diseases can be better controlled with many entering in to chronic stage.

We identified 4 Mega Trends that we believe technology can help in providing answers that can help address these Mega Trends: – Urbanization from 2.6 billion to 6.3 billion (year 2011 to 2050, UN data 2011) ; Economic shifts in the global market affecting Business, Jobs and Infrastructure. – Developing economies are accelerating the urbanization effort to transform from Rural to Urban economic activities. – Aging Population with increasing life expectancy, medical science advancement and low fertility across the world. The proportion of the population above 60

years will grow from 11% to 22% (2009 to 2050, UN, 2009) – Chronic disease management is now under stress despite medical advances and affluent lifestyles. Chronic diseases kill nearly 35 million people each year, including almost 9 million before the age of 60 (2010). “ Tackling these diseases constitutes one of the major challenges for sustainable development in the twentyfirst century." (WHO Assistant Director-General Dr Ala Alwan, 2010) These trends create challenges that are affecting our societies today and will have even greater impacts to future societies and cities. We have a glimpse of some of the potential impacts that we will face in the light of recent events. Examples are: a. The shutdown of the electrical grid for more than half the country. Technologies for controlling the grid are not keeping pace with the growth of population. People’s daily lives were affected as utilities like water and infrastructure like traffic lights were disrupted. b. The Economic Crisis that started in 2008 is still causing disruptive transformations in various countries. Employment requirements have changed and it has resulted in high unemployment. c. Social unrest and the speed of its propagation like in the case of Arab Spring, where social media, mass Building Future Intelligent Cities for People | Page 3

media and instantaneous communication technology have brought a government down within months. d.

A tsunami that paralyzed a developed country as infrastructure was destroyed and the local economy came to a standstill. This is a classic case where our modern society is so reliant on technology to function. It raises awareness to ensure that cities should plan to be resilient to disaster and people’s lives can return to normalcy quickly.

The Mega Trends and these recent events show that a well-designed city has to consider multiple factors and needs to solve extremely complex problems. It has to weigh many factors like people’s acceptance, sentiments, ability to comprehend, willingness to change, etc., against a city’s constraints like budgets and the stage of its development. To address this complexity, we break it down into FIVE areas : 1) People ; 2) Economy; 3) Infrastructure; 4) Environment; 5) Healthcare. Healthcare seems to be the odd one out in this grouping, but it is not, as two of the mega trends that the world is facing are the problem of Chronic diseases and an increasing aging population. Keeping people well using medicine affects their productivity, and also impacts facilities for the healthy. These are intertwined, as changes in one group will impact the rest.

By focusing around people, “ we will achieve greater

effectiveness

in designing the city of the

future.

”

Intelligent Cities today Many cities have invested heavily to upgrade their

infrastructure and facilities to be a modern city. Smartness through the use of technology is implemented using automation and optimization. It is about efficiencies and lean management of systems and services. Other cities are focusing to build sustainable cities, eco friendly and green under the global threats of environmental pollution, depletion of non-renewal resources, climate warming and human-influenced natural disasters. These important factors show the importance of the various areas that we should be worried about when building our next generation of cities. We are supporting these initiatives by the research and development of technologies to support future urban populations. We, at iCity Lab, believe that by focusing on people we will achieve greater effectiveness in designing the city of the future. – Intelligent use of expensive city services and

Page 4 | Building Future Intelligent Cities for People

infrastructure Informed and responsible use of resources – Individual decision of choice to use and conserve resources – Innovation in enabling people to find a better way of addressing city challenges by themselves – Community support and self-help, where social cohesiveness develops belonging, responsibility and character – Participation and moving in the same direction as city policies – Inclusiveness as people can come together to narrow various social divisions Many cities today understand these benefits and they are getting the support of people to do a part of these tasks. Often they are done in silos and as they are the extension of a larger infrastructure project, the voice of each person is lost as benefits are standardized based on population norms. We believe that when we take away the silo approach and integrate, allow personalization and participation, and acquire more data with analysis, we will be able to do much more with our existing investments.

Approaches in Designing a People-Centered Future City Information

Unique Asian Cities Asia has a relative young population and many countries are experiencing a high economic growth in a world with aging population while many developed countries are experiencing recessionary economies. In the next three decades, Asia is expected to experience high growth in many areas like economy and urbanization. We have identified 4 major global trends that could impact the design of future cities. Cities in Asia have their own unique characteristics that impact the design of future cities. Asia will have (Data from ADB, 2011): – By 2025, 21 of 37 megacities of over 10 million population will be in Asia – Increasing Urban density. From 2010 to 2040, 1.1 billion people will have moved into cities. Today, 8 of the 10 densest cities are in Asia – Velocity of Urbanization. Urban share of Asia’s population will grow from 43% to 63% (2010 to 2050) With a population whose income is increasing with economic growth, younger people who are more technology adept and adaptive, new cities with huge physical infrastructure investments and consumer affluence, recreation and social needs, Asia will meet challenges that are not prevalent in the western world. Today, we are starting to see glimpse of issues that have appeared in Asia including pollution, food safety, social unrest, unemployment, urban slums, etc. Asians adapt to technology at a rate that is much faster than the rest of the world. In countries like in China, Korea, India, Japan and Singapore we are seeing the high penetration of mobile, broadband and social media. This social and cultural evolution is a key factor that will differentiate the Asian Future Intelligent City.

Technologies are a key enabler in the design of future cities as we can enable a resident to be more efficient and effective in urban life. We can achieve this through: 1. Integrating residents processes with city resources and services 2. Measuring these processes for quality and outcomes 3. Personalization and customizable feedback of city services and processes 4. Capturing all transactions, through analytics, to understand sentiments, behaviors and trends for service improvement 5. Creating a integrated and closed loop city services that allow management of crises 6. Accumulation of information on processes, events and outcomes for planning and improvements 7. Create a holistic and sustainable city management system of with the capability of sensing, processing, analyzing, responding, feedback and iterating Our vision for future intelligent cities should be one that is Efficient and Effective, Sustainable in using Natural resources, Livable with clean and green environment, and with high level of Residents’ Happiness in meeting their Social, Economic and Intellectual needs. A future city should never be a “cold – efficient” environment that is based on efficiencies and measureable effectiveness, but it has to be a “Shangri-la” of happy residents whose social, emotional and aspirational needs are met. We should approach future intelligent cities to include making people more intelligent by helping them with processes, information, decision support and continuous education. We should allow each of the sub systems in a city to be innovative and efficient through the use of intelligent technology, and through intelligent people process, we integrate these processes to deliver an integrated system with aggregate benefits. People in a city are not a fixed variable in a city’s equation. We are an intelligent coefficient that can greatly affect a city’s solution to urban challenges. As a fixed variable, urban residents are expected to behave in a predictable way, as a key coefficient, it is not hardly predicable, so we will be optimized and innovate against constraints to ensure survivability and continuous evolution to a better urban environment. Information Technology is a perfect tool in our attempt to achieve this in a non-intrusive and harmonized approach.

Building Future Intelligent Cities for People | Page 5

In our opinion, the next wave of change for future cities will be in the integration of systems and the provision of real-time information to all the stakeholders in the city. Residents will be asking for more participation, collaboration and personalization in the use of services and information. City government will strive to be closer to the pulse of the city and its operations, the sentiments of its residents and businesses, and be very responsive at all levels of its operations including crisis situations. These are the strength of information technology and are well proven in very large organizations. Modern technology has helped cities to be efficient and it has provided people much convenience enabled through the powerful tools of social media, instantaneous communication, high bandwidth computing everywhere, smart personal devices, huge amount of accessible information and pervasive connectivity through internet-of-things, etc. We should use these developments to extend the capabilities of the future intelligent city, by process integration and information analytics, to meet our higher vision of future intelligent city.

and the Societal Impact of high-density living. It can be done through innovations in management approach and of information technologies in a cohesive matter. In particular, this can be done with the ability to efficiently translate Government Policies into City Programs that define the rules and coverage, and finally into residents services where it is used and consumed. Using Analytics and decision support tools, city management and operators will be able to understand its population behaviors and needs, the outcomes of its policies and understand trends that are evolving. With better understanding and awareness of city and its people, city management and operators can use appropriate methods, at the right time, to adjust and improve its services to meet the need of its people. This will lead to a more efficient city, more transparent government, more friendly public services, and last but not the least happier people who live in the city.

Educating and Information Future Cities will be designed around people as can be

seen in all the major themes of research in future cities. In the past, the focus was in building infrastructure, government services and improving basic necessities to city dwellers. Moving forward, these have to be extended to enabling each resident to have a better city life. These can broadly be defined as Economic, Social and Health. The four mega-trends mentioned create huge challenges in each of these three areas. Like in the trend of the Aging Population, Taking the residents’ point of view, integrating urban residents, in particular elderly, will face challenges in residents’ life with city processes and services, will allow a) Financial Independence (employment), b) Mobility and cities’ government to have an effective way of Social Support, c) deteriorating health, these are not addressing the Mega Trends that are challenging future exhaustive but a representation of the complex problems cities. They are Aging, Chronic Diseases, Unemployment that Mega Trends bring.

Effective City Government through a Closed Loop City Management

Page 6 | Building Future Intelligent Cities for People

d. enjoying wellness through better health preventive knowledge Education adds value to each resident. According to their needs, people can choose intelligently. Developing a lifelong system of continuous education requires that we integrate it into the lives of residents. We need to ensure relevance and personalization of these programs and courses in order that people use these services and be able to see the benefits of their efforts. Having an effective continual education programme will help a city to change people’s relevant skills and help them to live better through life skills and knowledge of wellness. It is a small investment with large impact in creating social, economic and individual value. One of the proven ways to better manage this problem is through Information and Education of the people living in the city. Equipping each resident well with knowledge through Information dissemination and continual education will ensure the sustainability and success of government policies and programs in the areas of Economic, Social and Health. – With Information, we are engaging with residents to know and participate in many of the city policies and programs. It could range from knowing (like statistics), participating (giving inputs), consuming (utilization of service what, where, how, when) and understanding outcome (benchmarking). Information is a powerful tool to keep each resident in constant engagement with the city system that includes its leaders, different government agencies and other public, social and commercial organizations, giving each a choice that they can choose to or not to participate, reduce draconian intrusion and allowing each to track any programs or policies in its stages of development. – Through education: Equipping residents will be the biggest contributor to keep a city vibrant, competitive, efficient and sustainable. The formal school system of year 1 to 12, educates children to adulthood and professional life. It does not adequately extend to the working adult phase, retirement and aging. Life-long education will ensure that residents stay employable as the city’s economy transforms, taking care of the underprivileged by equipping them with the knowledge of skills to allow them to be employable, self-sufficient, keeping a healthy mentality, and be ready for retirement, and many more. Humans are adaptive and when they make choices based on their knowledge, Life-long education can provide people to acquire new knowledge and skills, so they become more intelligent together with the city they live in, they can become more innovative, creative and better spontaneous to SHOCKs. We expect each resident in future intelligent city can be : a. gainfully employed and able to pursue new career dream through further learning b. feeling secure and willing to raise their family c. integrated with the rest of society and there is less issues of digital-divide and social-divide

People – The Reason for Building Future Cities Integrating existing systems is a logical but

extremely difficult task for a city. Today, many city governments are becoming service oriented and they are looking into ways where they can better serve their residents. Currently, many of these “silo” systems are already making their services available to their users through internet and mobile access. If we use these entry and access points, integrate them together around people processes to meet needs of people; to some degree, we will avoid the extremely difficult tasks of integration of “silos”. Continuing this momentum of serving people, information technology can bring this faster and further, without being impeded by technology legacy. Any people-centered city should be built on top of the current city infrastructure and services. For building future intelligent cities, we should build tools and processes to work with the current constraints and design future processes to embrace new technologies. Many of the current constraints can be surmounted by leveraging advancements in technology. We, SMU-TCS iCity Lab are looking to a future where the city, people, government and businesses work in unison and collaboration to run a city. It is a means to create a city that is in harmony in its operations, with people full of happiness, has a good place to do business, a good living environment and practices an eco-friendly and sustainable way of life. We want to do this by harnessing both the potentials of people and use of technologies taking a human approach – in short, taking a people-centric approach. Building Future Intelligent Cities for People | Page 7

SMU-TCS iCity Lab Intelligence to Better Quality of Life

Tata Consultancy Services (China) Co.,Ltd Beijing Headquarter

SMU-TCS iCity Lab Singapore

Mailto：[email protected] Tel: +86 10 5896 0200 Address: 1FTower D, 3rd Block, Zhongguancun Software Park, Building 9 8 Dongbeiwang West Road, Haidian District, Beijing,PRC,100193

Mailto: [email protected] Tel: +65 6808 5265 Address: School of Information Systems SMU, 80 Stamford Road Singapore , 178902

This white paper is a partnership between Singapore Management University and Tata Consultancy Services. Copyright © 2012, SMU-TCS iCity Lab. All Rights Reserved.