The 2017 Digital Cities Survey ranks cities on how they leverage technology to better serve their citizens. An important takeaway: city size and budget aren’t as important as visionary leadership who recognizes technology’s potential to transform communities and attract new citizens.

At the country level, top-ranked governments optimize public services delivery to be more effective, accessible, and responsive to people’s needs. The UK, Australia, Korea, Singapore, and Finland — the top five in the UN E-Government Survey — have doubled-down on digital technology.

The stakes are high: government digitization could generate over $1 trillion annually worldwide.

The Angle:

The future is closer than we think: 20.4 billion IoT devices are forecast by 2020.

Practical uses for IoT in government are everywhere:

• Management of traffic and reduction of automobile pollution with data coming from sensors in roads, weather information, public transportation, and car GPS devices
• Detection of flooding and earthquakes, giving citizens earlier warnings
• Tracking first responders’ location, movement, respiration, and exposure to heat and hazardous materials
• When combined with AI, can help monitor the movements of the elderly or transform accessibility for the 650 million people with disabilities worldwide

Source: IBM Industries Blog