Innovation for Asia's Smart Cities

The world is rapidly urbanizing. More and more cities around the world are becoming increasingly popular as economic powerhouses and magnets for migrants from the countryside, suburban areas and other parts of the world. All big cities in both First and Third World countries as well as emerging markets such as New York, London, Tokyo, Paris, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, New Dehli, Jakarta etc. have to cope with high population density and serious challenges such as air pollution or traffic congestion. How do we pack more people into big cities and yet continue to achieve a high quality of life? How do we create and manage ‘good cities’ which are safe, spacious, green, connected, fair and resilient? How can cities create economic wealth while still fulfilling the CSR responsibilities of sustaining a “Green Planet”? What are the best practice designs and technical smart city solutions which could be leveraged to tackle these challenges and how can they be successfully commercialised? This course will provide answers to these questions with special emphasis on the managerial and commercial aspects of smart city concepts.

The key lies in creating and effectively managing innovative and sustainable, smart cities able to leverage on new technologies such as smart grids or sensor networks to create a place where people can live, play and work well. Starting from the stakeholder requirements of citizens and planners of innovative cities, the course will introduce students to urban design concepts as well as commercialization, management challenges and implementation issues of the smart city model. There will also be a focus on how good governance and enabling technologies such as sensor networks can facilitate the creation, management and sustainability of ‘good’ cities.

With the help of case studies and resource persons such as industry leaders, innovative city designers, tech experts and business development experts from local and int. companies such as ST Electronics, JTC, Jurong Consultants, Frost & Sullivan, IDA International, Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) etc., students will be familiarized with the opportunities and challenges of the ‘smart city business’ which represents a key element in the value creation and extraction strategy of the Singapore Government and related businesses.