TO GO SMART IS NOT OPTIONAL.

Africa must accelerate the adoption of technology to curb security challenges, improve efficiency of services and enhance the quality of life.

The goal of building smart cities is to improve the quality of life by using technology to improve the efficiency of services and meet residents’ needs; furthermore, smart cities bring new “eco-friendly” jobs. Technology is driving the way public officials interact with citizens and public infrastructure.

By using real-time control systems and sensors, data are collected from citizens and sensors and then processed in real-time. The information and knowledge gathered are keys to tackling inefficiency, which leads to optimizing systems. A smart city offers technological solutions to tell what is happening in the city, how the city is evolving, and how to enable a better quality of life.

Smart cities facilitate economic development which in turn leads to growth and increase in GDP. The goal of economic development is to reduce unemployment, lower poverty, and increase income, which leads to better quality of life. As populations in cities and towns increase, challenges to sustainable economic development and basic community services also increase.

Most urban cities in Africa are facing multifaceted security and economic development challenges. Urban centers in many countries in Africa have industrial sites without access to rail, or efficient transport services, inadequate supply of workers with high-tech skills; and population lacking basic literacy skills.

As cities continue to urbanize, officials are obligated to boost economic development, expand access to health care, housing, job creation, education, and other social services; however, without proper planning and due to the rapid urbanization, most cities do not have adequate time to plan accordingly.

Urban centers in Africa are the fastest growing in the world and these centers are facing many challenges, such as high crime rates, unemployment, reduced economic development, poverty, aged infrastructure, traffic congestion, lack of clean water, environmental hazards, and slow and inefficient bureaucratic systems.

There are tremendous security challenges facing Africa, such as terrorism, robbery, kidnapping that are having negative impacts on safety and well-being of citizens.

It is imperative to develop smart solutions that improve the livability of cities and enhance security and economic development, while reducing resource consumptions considerably.

Ever since the industrial revolution, humans have been urbanizing at an exponential rate. There are 100s of thousands of new dwellings being built every day. Every week, there are at least a million new people moving into cities, worldwide.

By 2050, the United Nations (UN) is expecting that 6 billion people will be living in cities. A considerable number of the projection will be in Africa.

The only way for Africa to prevent serious social and economic crisis in the future is to adopt digital technologies in every area of human endeavor.