With the arouse of new technologies and innovative ways to understand human behavior, the concept of city has change to function accompanied by innovation. The concept of “Big Data” helped to comprehend that people create information daily, and that this data -correctly read- allows organizations, companies and governments to anticipate their needs and act on it. Even though it is a relatively new term, it has already made something clear: we, the people, give out information freely in large amounts and that material can be transform into power of action.
That’s where the concept of “Smart City” takes place, from the knowledge that throughout technology and communication, policies to achieve better and more efficient cities could be pursued through better infrastructure and optimal governmental services such as security, health and urban planning. But how?
Even though people generates a great deal of information every day, it doesn’t mean that all of it is worth collecting. That’s where “Big Data” plays a fundamental role, since it allows to analyze and organize valuable statistics. There are numerous apps that limit themselves to recollect specific type of data, like Waze that reads traffic patterns to create driving recommendations or Google Now that predicts user`s preference to suggest actions (the weather, distance from work to home, etc.) That is why it is important to delimit the use that will be given to certain information to know what tools to use to read it.
Since the key to create Smart Cities is to generate conditions for sustainable growth, meaning safe, resourceful, ecofriendly cities; the approaches that governments must take to walk towards that goal must be center in specific actions, for example: to improve citizens’ safety (using face recognition systems, mobility sensors, etc.), to ameliorate urban transportation (trough anticipation to traffic jams, better surveillance to accidents, prevention to bad weather condition, etc.), and to enhance citizens’ participation (creating open governments to decrease bureaucracy making the administration more efficient). The delimitation of these spaces of action will help determine the information needed hence stablishing the use that must be giving to “Big Data”
Lastly, creativity plays an essential role since each city has different needs and must proceed at its own pace; so, it is fundamental to understand the priorities and requirements of the people to respond to them and create circles of trust that allows better and faster steps towards becoming a Smart City.
