Colombia. Smart cities are the so-called cities that use the full potential of technology and innovation for their growth, achieving competent management in different areas: urban planning, construction, transport, education, health, public safety, among others and meeting the requirements of the city and its inhabitants.
But what are the benefits of smart cities for those who inhabit it?, Is it important to have in Colombia the so-called smart cities? In the national case, these smart cities have focused on finding harmony between the well-being of the population and the preservation of the urban environment.
Today, companies, organizations and specialists define that smart cities are essentially sustainable cities, which are oriented to the improvement of the way of life of their citizens and their development. This concept has made a career in recent years in the country, thanks to clear examples such as Medellín, an innovative city that uses information and communication technologies for the benefit of citizens. But for its development to be a reality, it is important to be clear that the issue of financing becomes a key point for implementation, a challenge that Latin American governments have to face, which is why public-private partnerships come to play a central role.
"The commitment of Cisco and its smart cities program is in line with the interests of the National Government to promote the ecosystem of entrepreneurship, innovation and new technologies for the sustainable development of our cities. In line with this objective, from ProColombia we will continue working on the promotion of the country as an investment and business destination, to encourage the arrival of new players who contribute with the transfer of knowledge and technology in favor of the technological revolution, competitiveness and progress of the country, "says Flavia Santoro, president of ProColombia.
Cisco develops activities and events to promote the adoption of policies that lead Colombia to implement smart city projects. In the latest version of Cisco Talks: Smart Cities, developed in Bogotá and with the special participation of Paola Vargas, Coordinator of Smart Cities of the ICT Ministry and experts such as René Sanz, Sales Specialist Premium Services of Cisco Latam, topics were discussed: "Digital adoption in cities to promote innovation in a country that seeks growth, digitalization is the most important leverage of transformation, not only of companies but also of an entire society."
In this sense, Cisco works focused on supporting the digitalization of the infrastructure of cities in different countries, and with the government of Colombia, actions have been carried out such as the last memorandum of understanding that was signed last May between President Iván Duque and Cisco to achieve transformative objectives for the country from technology.
Currently in Colombia the path for the development of smart cities is being built, and although there are defined roads for each type of city, in Colombia and its different cities, the platforms need to be thought of in their special characteristics addressing the necessary talk to achieve this precision and Cisco accompanies the country in that effort. For his part, Fernando Rodríguez, Development Manager of Alliances for Data Center and Multicloud at Cisco Latin America, indicates that, in the context of digital transformation and the trend of smart cities, the human sense of transformation and the meaning of Smart City from the point of view of citizens is often left aside, In this sense, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning have a lot of value to the extent that they promote applications that respond to the challenges of humanization and response to the most daily needs of citizens.
On the other hand, from the technical point of view it is understood that applications are the connector between technology and the actionable ones that define the execution of the services of a smart city towards citizens, in addition, the expression from technology to the decisions that are made in terms of services that they assume from the public administrations. Fabio Barahona, Service Provider Account Manager at Cisco Latam, tells about the important work that has been done in Barranquilla from smart lighting, a very current and local use case, a clear example of what can be achieved in other cities, but it is also a turning point on a very important issue in the issue of smart cities in each country, that of regulation.
In this sense, if it is put in a global context, Colombia is not part of these large centers of scientific and technological development that turn cities into smart cities, work that companies such as CISCO and the support of entities such as PROCOLOMBIA have been carried out together so that the attempts executed are of greater impact, such as the innovation laboratories and intelligent lighting that have been implemented in the territory.
Because regulation is a fundamental issue in the promotion of the digital transformation of a country from its smart cities because it really touches on two fundamental aspects: one that smart cities go beyond technology and that they implement solutions from the identification of particular needs of each city. In fact, internationally there is a classification of cities according to their type of infrastructure, their quality of services, their challenges and particular needs, and in Colombia most cities are type B, this already means a framework for the development of the smart city that is needed in the country.
In a second aspect, it also allows a standardization of the architectures and solutions that make the digital transformation in the different aspects and necessary areas to be achieved. This drives the architectures deployed in a smart city to be comprehensive, scalable, open, secure and the sum of these aspects is what determines standardization, ensuring that their development does not depend on a single provider. In addition, regulation is what allows the vision of digital transformation as a smart city to have a scope of 15 years or so.
To make the country the home of smart cities, it is important that all projects have as their main requirement the widespread existence of a good quality ICT infrastructure and access to information. Cisco thinks about the internet of things, thinks about intelligent citizen surveillance, thinks about disaster prevention, thinks about timely reaction from the authorities and all this thanks to an information system that is possible from an intelligent lighting system. That is what is called inclusive technology, because its possibilities in the framework of a smart city benefit any citizen, do not discriminate and do not differentiate who benefits.
