Interdependent technology is now an inevitable reality- ordering for items and services on line, monitoring the cities and activities with CCTV and sucking up data. The beautiful thing is that these machines are beneficial to everyone and Nigeria is not left out of the picture.
The Nigerian Information Technology Development Agency has said that commuting to smart city development will enhance development in Nigeria. This was revealed at the Smart Cities Summit hosted by the Ministry of Communication through Dr. Isah Ibrahim, the Director-General of NITDA.
Since the inception of industrial revolution, cities have been the engines of economic growth. With a greater use of technology, a number of cities are accumulating data, delivering innovation and enhancing lives of citizens. Nigeria has stayed so long in the dark age. It’s time to tap into the components of a smart city.
Punch reported that Mr. Ibrahim disclosed the agency’s decision to roll out a regulatory framework for Internet-of-Things (IoT) enabled applications to provide a standardized framework for smart initiatives in government. Mr. Ibrahim said:
“We are convinced that our commitment to the development of smart cities in Nigeria will encourage the rapid advances on the IoT technologies, platforms, tools and other related technologies, inclusive of mobile and cloud technologies, capable of developing the technological landscape of our nation and making lives livable for the people”
To this end, the country hopes to pay keen attention to technologies, buildings, utilities, transportation and road infrastructure. After all, the people migrate to cities to take advantage of technologies to further their personal and collective opportunities. On a general term, the NITDA boss said:
“Working towards realising smart cities is a must for the government in collaboration with stakeholders. However, as a developing country, with our peculiarity as a country, there is a need for us to rethink about smart cities implementation. We should be innovative about it and ensure implementation is sustainable. The focus should be on short and long term plans for building green field cities as well as rebuilding or retrofitting existing cities to be smart, future ready and sustainable. We need to be conscious of climate change.”
A very notable point is in the area of energy consumption, especially now that more people are going into online jobs such as freelancing and blogging. He acknowledged the essence of electricity in a growing economy and said:
“There is need to build a build sustainable business model, our own architecture for smart initiatives and ensure the right infrastructure are available. Infrastructure such as broadband; 5G; electricity, smart devices and agents; smart urban spaces; web-based applications, mobile technologies and e-services as well as open government data issues are crucial to achieving sustainable smart cities”
Mr. Ibrahim assured that NITDA is working painstakingly to ensure that infrastructure is available to realise the promises of the ICT. The government and commercial entities have a larger role to play in development and implementation of technologies that pave the way to smart city.
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
