DIGITAL DISRUPTION
40
“ THE ULTIMATE GOAL FOR SMART CITIES SHOULD BE TO UTILISE THE INSIGHTS THAT WILL ALLOW FOR THE IMPROVEMENT AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE PHYSICAL WORLD AROUND US ”
— Wael Elrifai , VP of Big Data , IOT & AI , Hitachi Vantara income inequality , siloed and unwieldy government bureaucracy , corruption , lack of access to healthcare , housing and education - all these factors and more contribute to make meeting the challenges of the modern city a daunting task . This doesn ’ t mean it ’ s not a task worth rising to .
The midday sun beats down over Dubai , sparkling against the glass tower of the Burj Khalifa and the waters of the Persian Gulf . A dozen rotors disturb the boiling air as an autonomous , electric passenger drone lowers itself through the sky and onto a docking station , ready to carry a young family in the direction of downtown .
In the 3,500 person city of Kalasatama – which is being built on the outskirts of Helsinki , Finland – an elderly man drops a bag of refuse into a vacuum tube that carries it away to an underground disposal centre . He doesn ’ t have to brave the sharp winter air and he hasn ’ t been stuck behind a garbage truck since he moved here . Adding up the time reclaimed by anticongestion measures and other town planning , Kalasatama ’ s developers say that living there gives every resident ,
JANUARY 2020