AFRICA GOING DIGITAL

Egypt has embarked on one of the biggest urban transformation projects in Africa. The Arab nation is building smart cities in the quest to ensure that Egypt takes the front burner in Africa’s urban transformation program.

Smart cities are becoming a fixture of Egypt’s infrastructural development strategy, over the next few years, the Egyptian government plans to introduce 38 new smart cities across the country as part of the Sisi administration’s long-term infrastructure development strategy.

These smart cities — also commonly referred to as fourth generation cities — will be built on a total of 530k feddans nationwide, offering 4 million direct and 3 million indirect jobs.

Initially, upon completion, the smart cities are expected to attract 30 million residents. The driving factors for the smart city program: Smart cities introduce the use of tech and artificial intelligence in a way that is in line with Egypt’s sustainable development strategy, Egypt Vision 2030.

The smart cities will take advantage of ICT to improve their sustainability, efficiency, and services by integrating operations on several fronts. These cities enjoy more advanced infrastructure starting from the way buildings are constructed, the building materials used, the urban planning of the spaces, and the technological infrastructure that will allow for fast internet speeds.

Data centers act as the “memory and brain functionality” of smart cities. The centers will monitor all smart systems in the cities as well as receive complaints from citizens so that specialists can solve them electronically.