The client is a ministry that spearheaded the implementation of national programs and initiatives to improve quality of life for urban citizens in an ASEAN Country. Working with a diverse group of consultants comprises of town planner, policy advisor and business strategists, the client aspired to establish a framework for sustainable Smart Cities developments that will serve as a guideline for future developments in the nation.
Full Story
Rapid urbanization has taken place over the last few decades in the country, resulted in various urban issues that adversely impacting the living quality of citizen, such as congestion, pollution, deterioration of natural resources and lack of affordable housing units. In the global context, smart city is seen as a new approach in urban management and development to transform a city to be more sustainable and livable.
Although there is great emphasis on transforming the existing cities into smart cities and strengthening digital infrastructure embedded in the nation’s development plans, the implementation of such plans often faced stumbling blocks such as lack of clarity in term of ownership of initiatives and challenges in coordinating large and diverse group of stakeholders which include both public agencies and private sector players.
The client realized that there is an imperative need to synthesize a comprehensive framework dedicated for smart city developments which outlined the development policy, implementation strategy and monitoring mechanism to ensure successful smart city developments that will eventually uplift the nation’s cities competitiveness and quality of life for the citizens.
Key Outcomes
The consultant team begin with defining the concept of a Smart City. The term Smart City is an overly used term which has no unified definition. Hence, it needs to be defined and agreed prior to the formulation of any recommendations. Leveraging on internal and international benchmark on literatures and guidelines on smart cities development, the study team had arrived at a definition and key criteria for a smart city which both the client and consultants can agreed on.
Key to the project’s success was to identify a comprehensive list of urban challenges and establish policies recommendations that would address it. This required a careful analysis of the current situation and. As part of the effort to uncover the urban challenges, the consultant team had orchestrated a series of focus group discussions with relevant government bodies and selected private sector players which could play vital roles in providing on-the-ground insights and perhaps implementation of the smart city initiatives.
Leveraging on digital platforms and close engagements, the study team offered an unprecedented platform for the participants to exchange opinions, voice out their real concerns and conduct result-driven discussions. With this, the study team created a rich pool of database that contained comprehensive information on the “real” urban challenges, possible root causes, and industry insights on policy recommendations.
Build upon the insights from the database, the team had developed a detailed list of policies recommendations, each equipped with a dedicator set of indicators to measure the performance level of a city in addressing the key urban challenges and to attain smart city level. These policies recommendations come in the form of an Implementation Brief (“IB”) which outlined the implementation strategy and monitoring mechanism.
Because of the multi-stakeholder nature in the implementation of this Smart City framework, the team placed a heavy emphasis on the governance and institutional framework to foster an ecosystem that facilitate smooth coordination between government entities and private sector players. A detailed communication plan which detailed-out the leading agencies, activities and implementation timeframe were developed to navigate the implementation and coordination of relevant parties.
The client is now set ready to roll-out its smart city pilot projects across the nation by applying the framework and IBs as guidelines with support from relevant government bodies and private sector players.
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*This project was delivered by the core team of 27Group during their tenure in a Netherlands-based engineering consulting firm. While it may not delivered under 27Group, we hereby declare that the contents above and our involvement are authentic and genuine.
