Smart thinking + City Thinking = Smart City(-ies)>>>Amend or Destroy? (featuring Portugal's Smart Cities Summit 2021).

The future of cities through smart technologies consists of a yester-year clause already and an ongoing process right now in most of the large urban centers of the globe. Technologists and citizens are united, working together towards intelligent tech in order to tackle problems and create new ways of living well. Everyone agrees that we all know who to address and what we need to achieve in terms of smart living inside the town or city. The transition to the final function, image and infrastructure of the city grid though, remains the tricky bit we need to follow carefully: the pace or rate of transition that allows the radical solutions we so need, in an less scraping-all-from-the map way. Thus said, complete re-invention of quarters from scratch, can and will impose total demolition of some of the existing networks, buildings, paths, machines, methods, practises. Promises for a more fluid transformation until 2040 will definitely aggravate the non-so-light-decision to erase artefacts of previous decades for good, in order to replace them with holistic solutions, ready to comply with the A-Z of the future dense landscape of digital services. Amendments will not be always possible: additions, extensions or temporary "patches" to all products of material culture, some of which are unable by birth to transform easily into a total digitalization environment and certainly unkeen to adopt to net zero emissions protocols in less than 2 decades time. 

Climate-wise, the latter has been the top subject of the list to begin with in this year's edition of Smart Cities Summit in Lisbon, Portugal. Currently, around 55% of the world's population lives in cities, and this number is predicted to reach nearly 70% by 2050. This presents significant challenges in terms of managing resources, processes and infrastructures in urban spaces, in order to respond increasing population density and safeguarding the quality of life of all inhabitants. However, this also means that cities – and, as such, their management – ​​play an increasingly important role in fighting climate change repercussions. It was in this context that João Pedro Matos Fernandes, Minister of Environment and Climate Action, opened the first day of the Portugal's Smart Cities Summit 2021, taking place last week.

“Days after the COP 26 Summit in Glasgow on climate – the most important since the Paris agreement, in which each party would have to present itself as more ambitious in its decarbonisation goals – the importance of cities becomes very evident- it is of vital importance to achieve those climate goals”, emphasizes the Minister.

“It is now essential that every city wants to be famous for its commitment to the climate, to its citizens and to transforming life in their cities towards a carbon neutral society that regenerates resources, creates well-being, generate wealth and make the economy grow – not only inside but also outside walls”.

"Only cities and local authorities have the capacity to bridge the gap between the obligation to combat climate change and the need for this transition to be just, without leaving anyone behind, and choosing the right policies for urban territories", concludes the Minister of Environment and Climate Action.

Production in all sectors, from basic commodities, fashion, furniture et al. to Fine Art will go through major remapping as well. As an example, SAP announced the availability of SAP Responsible Design and Production, a solution that allows you to design products sustainably and transition to a circular economy. This is the latest offering in a growing portfolio of sustainability-specific software applications that help companies increase their measurement and data management capabilities. As corporate sustainability regulations such as plastic taxes are introduced, the SAP Responsible Design and Production solution enables brands to accelerate their transition to Circular Economy business practices. The SRDP helps companies gain better visibility into material flow throughout their processes, including tracking and enforcing constantly-updating regulations, especially those relating to product packaging and plastics. With the growing development of sustainable products by companies, the management of materials and regulatory data is one of the most complex challenges in today's consumer industry. There is inherent complexity in designing products that eliminate waste and use responsible materials, but the SAP Responsible Design and Production platform- native in Cloud, co-developed with Accenture and based on the SAP Business Technology- addresses these perplexities and offers the ideal, customized solution to customers, helping them to make circular products available and achieve a regenerative economy.

Check out our top selection of most noteworthy startups in the exhibition area of PSCS 2021, covering a wide spectum of facilities regarding intelligent systems for energy, security, crisis prevention, governance, architecture and design:

https://wavecom.pt/

http://www.enermeter.pt/

https://www.ama.gov.pt/

http://www.apemeta.pt/pt/

https://aqvamore.com/

http://www.e4s.pt/

https://www.bloomwall.com/

http://www.gesi.org/

Until next year's show, stay well and be smart in & out your home, town or city.

Best wishes

A4D-D4A💙💚🙌

WEB SUMMIT 2016-2021:The lifelong learning experience up to now, (key notes from the fair in Lisbon, Portugal).

Why Web Summit turns out to be that important after all? Apart from the global influence of the event business-wise, as the game-shaker and  play-maker of the digital entrepreneurial world plus a major platform to actually inspire more recent tech fairs in other capitals in the likes of London and Amsterdam, Web Summit remains a generator of ideas and actions for social change. The once-upon- a-time Irish startup starting all the way back in Dublin, moved to Lisbon's vibrant, digital ecosystem, merging forces with the local and international market but also affecting politics and helping to create initiatives by all those factors who strive for a benevolent, cooperative, restorative and innovative era of technology 4 Good.  

Here is a condensed recap of a few focal highlights of those last years, the beginning of a exciting journey: as long as the digital era creates opportunities of expansion  but also raising question marks Web Summit will continue to contribute with solutions in and out the web, always with strong ethics and the power of a new thinking class.  

-HR: Character VS Curriculum Vitae 

Recruitment technologies are getting more and more advanced, enriched lately with deep AI, an attempt for quicker and more centralized selection of candidates, a method that created controversy though especially in beauty pageants where the algorithm focused on Caucasian candidacies. The essential ability to distinguish the right one for the job remains  finally the interview and the evaluation of his/her personal traits and code of ethics, more than the prior experience or the knowhow. The difference-maker is always the character-builder in contemporary HR approach. (JobSCope A, Polina Montano). 

-Outer space – Airspace: Field 4 Business 

The outer space exploitation plus the airspace ventures of the future go beyond the exploration of other planets and civil aviation (airlines) for tourism purposes. Bobby Healy, the founder of aviation company MANNA stirred customer services through contemporary  technologies: drones delivering your takeaway lunch order. Astroscale,  is a global private space debris removal company using its technology for stock sustainable transferring  to outer space, headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. The possibilities are endless and they do not stop in the sectors of retail or waste management. 

-Improve VS Recreate 

In certain areas there are certain ways to function. Penalties inside the digital space acting as amendments or alerts to tech giants are proved to be unsuccessful: the result is that fines are getting paid by the Big tech for several discrepancies which end up being repeated. The actual solution for certain practices to stop is to demolish (and recreate from scratch) entirely the digital environment of action for the big tech who continue to ignore legislation. EU deciphered the challenges of this year including the need for restoration after a penalty and the recovery of the market post-damage, a new code of conduct (i.e. the Anti-Trust Law Enforcement) for any upcoming big company, the new tools set for distant working and learning, the need to release the weights and move faster in a capitalistic environment of private property and initiative. 

-AI Benevolence VS AI Discrimination 

With clauses like “physical labour in the industrial unit is going to be vanished” and AI wining over vital space in the workforce department when it comes to learning, public transports, farming and admin the new dominant question is born; not how many jobs we will lose to machines but what type of new jobs we will move into? Many countries implement coding since kindergarten and specialized tech or customer support tends to become a new sector of economic growth. 

-Growth VS Scale 

Vertical profit or profit in physical money tends to be less important when other type of assets like NFT are taking the lead (among many others to follow), especially to multidimensional, hyper-architected environments like the Metaverse soon to be launched inside many industries other than entertainment, (: virtuality, interaction between humans And services, augmented features 4 larger or smaller user audiences worldwide).  

-Public sector Architecture VS Public Sector Infrastructure 

Dr. Rebecca Parsons on evolutionary architecture and governance, she re-invented the public speaker's game in WS19, regarding a subject we rarely hear about and even more rarely tend to (really) understand. Linear hierarchies in the public sector infrastructure, pyramid schemes with the odd external app enriching the user value to make it look “upgraded”, belong to the Napoleonic era. The current notion of digitally stereoscopic , fully augmented, intelligent systems where civilians and public administrators contribute and navigate simultaneously saves time, can be error proof and excels in provision and crisis management scenarios. 

-Supply Chain VS Climate Rescue 

What it takes for environmental organizations to team up for one cause: net zero carbon emissions by 2050? Sustainability is not an expense but a cost-reduction factor and it needs to be implemented at the birth of every business, like an energy certificate for buildings, like water, electricity or consumables. The themes of ecology, desystematization and re-systemization, Circular Economy Model, ethical consumption, deplastification, repair, performance economy, dematerialization et al. are going to affect the state of the planet therefore the change in our climate. A change directly linked with a shift of the current economic and political system. 

-Shake hands (with the attendant next to you) VS not to shake hands;-) 

Paddy Cosgrave's advice is the first kick in the opening WS ceremony, just to break the ice and start networking: shake hands or (post-Covid) kindly introduce yourself to the person seating next to you;-))  

Which is your favourite year from 2016 onwards at Web Summit in Lisbon? You can register your vote and comment at the Blogger comment section bellow! 

NEXT: TO BE CONTINUED WITH PORTUGAL SMART CITIES SUMMIT 2021 UPDATES;-)) 

Stay awesome and trust in #websummit 

A4D-D4A💙💚🙌