Smart City

I have conducted research, given talks, organized workshops and tutorials at major technical venues on the Smart City subject over the past many years (2010-). My works look at smart city from a resource optimization objective. Here is a tutorial on building smart city solutions using AI and open data (July 2015, IJCAI).

Background of the Smart Movement

A major problem faced by global citizens today is sustainability and improvement of quality of life despite over-population and limited resources. As the world’s population increases and it puts increasing demands on the planet’s limited resources due to shifting life-styles, we not only need to monitor how we consume resources but also to optimize resource usage. Some examples of the planet’s limited resources are water, energy, land, food and air. Today, significant challenges exist for reducing usage of these resources, while maintaining quality of life. Smart city can mean a few things in this context. A city leader can make some picks:

  • As a resource optimization objective, it is to know and manage a city's resources using data. IBM's 3I pitch (instrumentation, interconnection and intelligence) is in that direction.

  • As a caring objective, it is about improving standard of life of citizens with health, safety, etc indices and programs.

  • As a vitality objective, it is about generating employment and doing sustainable growth.

Some of the ongoing technical discussions I participate in happen here: https://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=3451751.