ASCA forms smart cities industry collaboration

The Australian Smart Communities Association (ASCA) has teamed up with companies including Telstra, Intel and Cisco to help local councils develop strategic plans for transforming into smart cities.

The new industry collaboration aims to help governments and smart city stakeholders — including the health, education, transport and business sectors — develop holistic, citizen-focused approaches for smart city transformation.

It will aim to help local councils develop viable business and investment models for smart city projects, providing concepts for procurement as well as city-as-a-service models that can reduce the financial and political risks involved with smart city projects.

Founding members also include Accenture, Avaya, BigBelly, Energex, Endeavour, Ergon, Ericsson, Indra, KPMG, Lendlease, Netcomm, Oakley Greenwood, Optus, Silver Springs, Thinxtra, Transgrid, Vertel, Vodafone and Wipro Technologies.

ASCA executive director Paul Budde said the collaboration will place citizens at the centre of smart city approaches.

“The industry collaborative can assist local councils to develop their own unique smart city by using open standards for each community on which city platforms can be built,” he said.

“This allows for intercity and interregional sharing, which will significantly reduce costs. This also protects cities from locked-in situations.”

Budde said several councils have already shown an interest in the approach taken by the initiative.

ASCA recently announced that Adelaide has been selected to host the second annual Smart Communities Summit in 2017.

Image courtesy of Matthias Ripp under CC