We’ll follow Moscow’s example
Meeting of the Connected Cities 2020 urban leaders’ international club held in Moscow
The participants discussed the prospects of the fifth generation wireless networks, the implementation of smart lighting, and the transition from the Internet of Things to the Internet of Everything.
Between 22 and 24 May, leaders and experts in the sphere of Smart City from the largest cities of the world gathered in Moscow to talk about the prospects of the fifth generation wireless networks, share their experiences concerning the implementation of smart lighting, and discuss the transition from the Internet of Things to the Internet of Everything.
Artificial intelligence, blockchain technology, big data, 5G, the Internet of Things, plus virtual and augmented reality, will become the key components of the new digital city strategy, Smart City 2030, said Moscow Government Minister and Head of the Department of Information Technology Artyom Yermolayev during a presentation of the strategy at the meeting of the Connected Cities 2020 urban leaders’ international club.
The new strategy will be based on using state-of-the-art technological solutions. This will allow for the creation of the most convenient, accessible and personified virtual environment for people in Moscow. With the help of big data analysis, experts will be able to improve the effectiveness of the management decision-taking process.
In order to implement the new technologies in the sphere of urban management, the support of businesses is needed. “The existing strategy, as well as our current approach show that the amount of money allocated from the state budget in order to implement everything that had been planned is simply not enough,” Artyom Yermolayev said. “This is why our only option is to partner up with businesses. Within the framework of this partnership, we will have to convince our colleagues to work together, or else the implementation process will take from 10 to 20 years.”
The Head of the Department also talked about the risks of using state-of-the-art information technologies, and reminded everyone present about the necessity to ensure high level security. “According to statistics, last year, state resources had been experiencing attacks every 30 seconds,” he said. “Now this number is down to 20 seconds. Every week, a total of 11 million attacks on state and city resources take place; this number will only keep growing.”
All Moscow citizens can participate in the development of the digital strategy. Everyone willing can familiarise themselves with the draft of this document and affect the process of drafting of any of its sections in more than ten areas of development.
Over 10,000 entrepreneurs have already commented on the Smart City 2030 strategy. The section called Development of Digital Mobility became the most actively discussed section of the strategy. Experts were also interested in the implementation of biometric payment systems, autonomous transport and the single city transport system, MaaS (Mobility as a Service).
Comments and suggestions developed during the discussions will be taken into account upon drafting the final version of the document. Unlike the traditional sectoral strategies, the new document will not focus exclusively on the sphere of information and communication technologies, focusing on the interrelated development of all urban sectors instead. The main goal of this project is to create an innovative city, where digital technologies are used to improve the living standards of the citizens.
The new technologies are already being implemented in the sphere of education and healthcare, plus in the field of housing and utilities – namely, the city video surveillance systems, the UMIAS emergency centre system, the Moscow Electronic School, the system for online monitoring of public cleaning services, and the automated system for monitoring resource consumption. Moscow became one of the first cities to implement blockchain technologies for its Active Citizen project. Instead of being stored in one place, the results of electronic votes are now stored in blocks forming a distributed network.
Moscow presented its achievements in the sphere of IT to the participants of the Connected Cities 2020 urban leaders’ international club.
Moreover, at one of the My Documents centres, international experts will get to know more about the Moscow standards of service provision. The experts will also be able to visit the situation room of the Traffic Management Centre, and participate in an open lesson with the help of the Moscow Electronic School’s tools.
The Connected Cities 2020 international urban leaders’ club is a global platform for the cities to exchange experiences, and for establishing long-term cooperation relations in the sphere of urban development. A total of 20 participants at the level of deputy mayors and key persons of the city can exchange experiences and talk about the best practices in the format of an open dialogue. Representatives from private businesses and the civic society are welcome to join the discussion. The meetings held in the format of visits are of particular interest: these include interactive round table discussions, networking events, tours of various technical infrastructure facilities of the host cities, and innovative projects’ discussions. When drafting these programmes of meetings and visits, organisers are taking into account the input as well as the feedback of all participating cities.
What did foreign participants of the Connected Cities 2020 urban leaders’ forum think of Moscow?
Jamie Cudden,
head of Dublin City Council’s Smart City program (Dublin, Ireland)
Moscow has Wi-Fi everywhere. This impressed me
I was really impressed by how the team sees the process of introducing new digital technology. As soon as you get to the city, you immediately notice that there is access to Wi-Fi everywhere. So the internet is really accessible.
I was also impressed by digital payment systems and developments in the sphere of e-government. We’ve already looked at some electronic services and visited government service centers. All of these are highly advanced solutions. I think that in this respect, Moscow is on par with other cities in the world, and in some ways even ahead of them. I also have to point out that solutions in the sphere of security are very advanced as well.
Paola Pisano,
Deputy Mayor for Innovation and Smart City (Turin, Italy)
Moscow has cameras everywhere. This is very important for people’s safety
Life in Moscow can be really enjoyable! In my opinion, an especially key element is bicycle and scooter rentals. I think that the joint consumption economy is very important for the city. I also really like the way that streets are set up: very wide sidewalks, people can walk around the city easily. This is just as important as advanced technology.
In terms of technology, I noticed other things, including the widespread use of cameras. This is very important for the safety of city residents.
Turin also pays a lot of attention to the data economy, just like Moscow, because artificial intelligence works on data. So we do about the same thing, but there is one big “but” here: we’re not as proficient at using data. I know you can do it, but we don’t have enough resources.
Marius Sylvestersen,
head of the Smart City program (Copenhagen, Denmark)
The idea to create a network of government service centers is fantastic!
The idea to create a network of government service centers all over the city is fantastic! In Copenhagen, we’re doing about the same thing. Because you can’t force people to go to different places all the time. When you can get all government services in once place, it makes life a lot easier.
We’re trying to reduce interactions between officials and residents to a minimum, so, like in Moscow, we’re urging city residents to use electronic services. But we need centers as well, because there are people everywhere that don’t want to use personal computers. These people need to have the opportunity to go a center in person. But in Copenhagen we only have a few establishments like this in the city.
Craig Chung,
Curator of the Smart City program (Sydney, Australia)
We’ll follow Moscow’s example
I think that Moscow has every chance of becoming a progressive smart digital city. It has all the opportunities and resources to do so. I can assure you that the chances are quite high. This is an ambitious strategy, but in a good way. In the digital world, in smart cities, everything changes very quickly and we can only try to predict what will happen by 2030. Today it might seem that this is an ambitious plan, but 12 years from now we’ll look back and see that it wasn’t so hard because everything is evolving so quickly. Moscow has all the resources it needs for development, it has support from the government. So “Strategy-2030” is a very attainable plan.
Not all cities have the option to use data in public places, like Moscow. The differences in legislation play a role here as well. So we have an excellent opportunity to see how things work out in Moscow, which uses the most advanced tech solutions. And how we, in turn, can also make data more accessible. It’s very important to collect data and integrate artificial intelligence, to use all of this to predict the needs and wishes of the population. The ways government bodies can use data to improve the quality of government services is just as important. That’s exactly what people are waiting for.
From the Moscow Mayor’s official site
