Analytical model for the readiness of information and communication technologies applicable to city management: smart cities

• Grant number: 17/22229-0
• Support Opportunities: Research Grants - Innovative Research in Small Business - PIPE
• Start date: February 01, 2019
• End date: January 31, 2021
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Administration - Public Administration
• Principal Investigator: Marcos Cesar Weiss
• Grantee: Marcos Cesar Weiss
• Company: MR/W Brasil Consultoria em Informática Ltda. EPP
• CNAE: Desenvolvimento e licenciamento de programas de computador não-customizáveis ; Portais, provedores de conteúdo e outros serviços de informação na internet ; Pesquisa e desenvolvimento experimental em ciências sociais e humanas
• City: São Paulo
• Associated scholarship(s): 19/07963-5 - Analytical model for the readiness of information and communication technologies applicable to city management: smart cities, BP.PIPE

Abstract

Smart cities make intensive use of information and communication technologies (ICT) to increase the efficiency of their organizational capabilities, promote the quantity and quality of public infrastructure and services, foster innovation and strengthen their competitiveness in different social and economic scenarios. These ICTs present themselves as appropriate tools for public authorities at the local level to implement them to enabling new forms of city management and allowing better understanding and realization of the urban dynamics. As smart cities initiatives have dramatically increased around the world, some evaluative models are also available, such as Rudolf Giffinger's model, Chourabi's model, the Smart Cities Maturity Model or the Smart Cities Readiness Guide, which will be presented in the course of this work. These models take into account several aspects related to urban dynamics, but do not focus particularly on the identification, qualification and applicability of the different components of ICT in the construction of a smart city, correlating the different public services with the applicable technologies to them. Further, these models do not provide any kind of method to support city managers for planning their activities neither for assessing the results arrived from the implementation of technologies that aim the smart city. This way, it remains to know how to assess whether a city can be qualified as a smart city from the perspective of the implementation of ICT at the municipality level. This applied research project has the objective of proposing an evaluation model of ICT readiness applicable to the cities management, complementing, improving and transforming the initial results of the doctoral research of the Researcher Responsible for this project into a marketable product. The project, with a two-years term, will be developed through the following steps: 1) Updating of the Theoretical Field; 2) Review and Increase the Initial Evaluation Model; 3) Primary Validation of the Revised Evaluation Model; 4) Adjustments and Development of Algorithms; 5) Extend of the Field of Application; 6) Final Validation of Results; 7) Specification of System Requirements; 8) Writing the Final Report. The development of an ICT readiness assessment model is the core of this project, looking for (a) fostering further development of ICT for cities management in terms of expected functionalities and integration and data exchange requirements, in a way to promote a holistic vision and dependence between domains and dimensions of the cities management; b) enabling governments, non-governmental organizations, citizens, companies and other stakeholders with tool ready for identifying, evaluating and designing the possibilities of the usage of ICT to increase efficiency in cities management in order to implement the smart cities, including the possibility of support for the identification and management of risks inherent in the design, execution and measurement of results of ICT projects by the public authority at the local level; c) promoting the creation of evaluative and evolutive plans for the implementation of ICTs in cities management, considering the increase of technological functionalities necessary for each dimension of urban management and the necessary integrations between the dimensions of the same domain or other domains. (AU)