Smart Cities are becoming a critical necessity, and now is the time for South Africa to implement the basic foundations to become smart-city ready.<\/p>\n
This is due to the confluence of increasing urbanization, greater pressure being placed on the successful management of a city due to a rising population, and climate change.<\/p>\n
Cities need to be able to manage a sudden natural crisis, such as flooding, and be able to dispatch emergency and medical units without delay to save lives.<\/p>\n
\u201cSouth Africa is the leader when it comes to smart city technology in Africa,\u201d says Reshaad Sha, Chief Strategy Officer for\u00a0DFA<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cAll three of our biggest cities\u00a0 \u0336\u00a0 Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Durban\u00a0 \u0336\u00a0 have put into operation some variants of smart city solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n Nevertheless, he adds that South African cities would benefit from pervasive high-speed connectivity, which is the catalyst of and foundation for the development of a smart city.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is this connectivity that will enable effective data collection and analytics to ensure continuous improvement along with the use of mobile technologies to reach every citizen in South Africa.<\/p>\n \u201cIn short, only once a comprehensive high-speed network is in place will our cities be in a position to address our unique challenges and become smart,\u201d Sha adds.<\/p>\n However, this is only the first step, since\u00a0the formation of a smart city requires a long-term urban plan, and a number of other challenges still stand in the way of smart cities becoming a reality in South Africa.<\/p>\n \u201cAlong with underdeveloped infrastructure, an even more troubling obstacle is the skills deficit,\u201d Sha says.<\/p>\n This challenges the advancement of smart cities nationally, requiring well-trained, tech-savvy individuals who understand and can use IT systems when under pressure.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, this development of human capital does not happen overnight.<\/p>\n \u201cSouth Africa\u2019s major cities need to have a defined 20- to 40-year plan, coupled with a long-term vision to accommodate this projected expansion,\u201d Sha concludes.<\/p>\n For more information about\u00a0DFA and its high-speed connectivity offerings, please visit\u00a0<\/a>http:\/\/www.dfafrica.co.za\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Smart Cities are becoming a critical necessity, and now is the time for South Africa to implement the basic foundations to become smart-city ready.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":118374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10459],"tags":[1756,1757,26,1600],"class_list":["post-118372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry-news","tag-dark-fibre-africa","tag-dfa","tag-headline","tag-smart-city"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118372"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":118376,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118372\/revisions\/118376"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}