01 Oct '19

Cities 'smartening up' for the future

9415
door Wim Troch
A ‘smart city’ is what the future has in store for us. But what does that mean exactly? And why should a city have to be ‘smart’ anyway? Is this new technology an improvement or will it just be something to cater for the whims of technology freaks?

‘A city can be said to have smart technology if we manage to achieve three goals,’ says Joachim De Vos, the CEO of Living Tomorrow and TomorrowLab and the president of Smart Cities Flanders. ‘First of all, it should improve people’s quality of life. Second, it has to represent an environmental step forward. Third, the technology has to offer an economic advantage. In a nutshell, a smart city has use technology to boost the efficiency of its activities and the well-being of its inhabitants, while curbing costs and reducing our ecological footprint.’