Smart cities must be inclusive cities

In Smart City conferences and industry events, we talk a lot about inclusive cities. Although “smart” can be understood in many ways, in this context it is really about using technology to enable the city to self regulate – to let officials know when it’s waste needs removing or to signal when it needs maintenance or . So the data used by the technology is not exclusive, everyone’s data is collected in same and goes in the same bucket. Subways sensors don’t see the color of a person’s skin, gender or income level when they collect your data.

In this way, smart cities are necessarily inclusive because big data is inclusive. However, the way in which the “Smart City Revolution” is administered could be more inclusive. At present most smart city conversations focus on the “visionaries” and the academics and I think this conversation needs to be extended. Since we are using people’s data to make public sector decisions, we should also listen to their voices.