BUILDING SMART CITIES THROUGH THE EYES OF CITIZENS AND AVOIDING CITIZEN

ENGAGEMENT PITFALLS

Dr. Mazlan AbbasCEO - REDtone IOT, MALAYSIAEmail: mazlan.abbas@redtone.com

AGENDA• We’ve heard a lot about the promise of Smart Cities, but where are

we now and what is holding us back?• Highlighting the need for truly customer-centric Smart City services• A look at REDtone IOT’s strategy and journey so far

SMART CITY HURDLES

Flashy apps and websites get a lot of attention for reaching people, but by themselves, they are not citizen engagement.

TECHNOLOGIES THAT ENABLE IOT

Cheap sensors(50% cheaper)

Cheap bandwidth(40x cheaper)

Cheap processing & smarter

(60x cheaper)

Ubiquitous wireless coverage(free wifi)

Big data(unstructured

data)

IPv6

Smartphones(personal gateway)

For the Past 10 Years

People (Non-Tech)(More sophisticated)

DELIVERING THE WHOLE IOT PUZZLE

Internet

BiometricUltrasonicTempHumidityPressureMotionPositionLightImage

MotorSwitchLightingValve

Sensors

Actuators IO

TMiddlew

are

Analytics

Applications

WiFi

2G/3G/4G

LoRa

SigFox

SMART CITYINTRODUCTION TO

BUILDING 3 TYPES OF CITIES

ROI-driven

Carbon-driven

Vanity-driven

CITIZEN-FOCUSED • BUILDING TRUST

Citizen-Centric Data-Driven Decision

Smart Tools Responsive

Cost Effective

Accountable

Transparent

Collaborative

SMART

#bettercitybetterworld

CITYBETTER CITY • BETTER WORLD

Build cities through the eyes of the CITIZENS

VISION OF THE CITY OF THE FUTURE

Open source and open data

Make visible the invisible

Sensing the city Provide tools for the citizens to interpret and change the workings of the city

Technology may help mitigate the “black hole” problem.

CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT

CROWDSENSING VIA

Ad Hoc

Chaotic

VIRAL

SMS

Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Radio TV

CAPACITY TO HEAR AND RESPOND

Traditional channels (web portals, emails, phone calls etc)and method unable to handle effectively

CITIZENS CITY AUTHORITIES

“Black hole” issue

We Build Cities Based on Citizen-Centric Approach

CROWDSENSINGGet citizens input via their smartphones

LIVEABLE CITIESCitizens have a better quality of life

BUILD NEXT SMART CITY SOLUTIONLeverage innovative IOT solutions to solve the pain points of cities inhabitants

RANK & DECIDEAuthorities decide and justify their next plan of action

CITY INDICATORCitizens will see how their cities perform

REDtone IOT APPROACH

BUILDING THE NEXT SMART CITY SOLUTIONS

IDENTIIFY & SOLVEIdentify locations of issues and City Authorities respond accordingly

CITIACTAPP FOR ACTION, NOT TALKING

CRIME AREAS FLASH FLOODS

NOISE LEVEL ROAD QUALITY

Determine your city’s characterGAINING INSIGHTS • OPTIMISING RESOURCES

BUILD YOUR

NEXT SMART CITY SOLUTIONS?

HOW-TO

TOP CITIACT PAIN POINTS

SMART VANDALISM MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

Local Councils

Illegal PostersWill be uselessIllegal Posters with

Telephone Numbers

Phone NumbersBlocked

Regulators

SMART WASTE MANAGEMENT

TIMELY SCHEDULE

ALERT

“I’M FULL”

UNATTENDED GARBAGE

RIGHT ROUTES

SMART PARKING

Smart ParkingWith Sensors

Location ofParking

Availability

Parking Utilization

Tiered PricingParking

TWEETING POTHOLES

ROADSENSE YOUR POTHOLES

AVOID CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT PITFALLS

How-to

[Originalarticle- https://iotworld.co/2016/08/01/tips-for-city-authorities-how-to-avoid-citizen-engagement-pitfalls/ ]

TIP (1) – BUY-IN FROM BOTH SEGMENTS

• It requires the active participation of both parties. It’s like “chicken or egg” question. Who starts first?

• Residents felt that their complaints would go down the deaf ears of the local councils –just like going down the black hole.

• The local authorities that are sensitive to the citizens feel that the citizens need to channel their grouses into a proper channel rather than letting their anger on social media and become terribly viral.

TIP (2) – PUBLICITY

• If you ask 100 or 1000 people on the streets whether they have heard such application. We can almost guarantee you that none have heard that.

• It’s easier to get a ridiculous publicity message across the WhatsApp rather than something which is more useful

• ”Engagement fatigue”– Staff intensive– Time consuming– Little return of Municipal investment

TIP (3) – FINDING THE RIGHT CONCERNED CITIZENS

• Who are these people? What type of individuals that are concerned about the cleanliness or safety of the surrounding.

• The NATO and the SELFIES – the non-concerned citizens

TIP (4) – GAMIFICATION IF NECESSARY

• People wants an incentive to participate in crowdsourcing initiative. Either get themselves paid in monetary or prizes.

• The other way is to gamify the app in such a way that gives some form of status within the community app. Give them points and elevate them into a different status or higher rank on the leadership board.

• Launch contest with prizes for being the most active users.

TIP (5) – PRESSURE GROUPS

• No administrators of the cities would love to receive complaints every day. Nobody likes to handle hundreds or thousands of complaints each day throughout the whole year. But if they did not manage and close the complaints, how could they solve all the problems which are already in the queue?

• Why need to be in a reactive mode when local councils can be proactive?

• Sometimes, city authorities need a little push or “pressure” from the people.

TIP (6) – SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNELS• The most popular official channels by

local councils are either through phone, fax, web portal or email. But technology has rapidly changed the landscape of communications with the advent of smartphones, mobile Internet, and Social Media.

• Allow the citizens to communicate on their favorite social media channels.

“One App to Bind Them All”

TIP (7) – IN-HOUSE VS OUTSOURCE

• It’s NOT only the front-end but also the backend system.

• Thus, a lot of cities who thought that they could just develop the mobile app (i.e. the front-end) in-house did not realize what they are going to end up.

• Nearly all local council IT departments are not set up as a product development house. The budget given to them are only enough to operate, manage and maintain the IT system but not to become innovative and develop their application.

TIP (8) – PRODUCT ROADMAP

• Handling a continuous development and future enhancement of the backend system requires a sustainable IT support resources.

• New technology emerges and thus it must quickly be adapted with the current process workflow.

• Developing and supporting this in-house will probably give the IT department of the local council a horrible nightmare that they will always regret.

TIP (9) – SMART CITY VISION

• Citizen engagement is only one of the single component in a Smart City. They are many applications which require integration to a smart city platform; thus, it cannot be developed in silo manner.

• Remember that IOT also requires input from physical sensors (other than the sensors from the smartphones).

• A real Smart City need an integrated platform that collects and aggregates various sources of data (structured or unstructured) to discover the insights of the city and make cities a better and sustainable place to live.

TIP (10) – IT’S NOT AN IT JOB!

• Of course, any IT company can develop the mobile app.

• However, IOT requires different skills that encompass embedded programming, understanding different communications protocols, cloud services, and big data analytics.

Smart Parking Smart Waste Management

Smart Street Light

Smart Transportatio

n

Open Data Parking GarbageCollection Lighting Public

Transport Smartphone Users

SMART CITYHUBSocial Media

IOT APPLICATIONS

SENSOR DATA

CitiAct

A city isn't smart because it uses technology. A city is smart because it uses technology to make its citizens' lives better.

THANK YOU@REDtoneIOTREDtoneIOT

• EMAIL: mazlan.abbas@redtone.com• TWITTER: @mazlan_abbas• FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/drmazlanabbas• LINKEDIN: my.linkedin.com/in/mazlan/• SLIDESHARE: www.slideshare.net/mazlan1• ABOUT ME: about.me/mazlan.abbas• BLOG: iotworld.co