Building on Smart Cities Skills and Competences: Human factors affecting smart cities development (Internet of Things)

337 Pages·2022·6.657 MB·English

by  Panos Fitsilis (editor)

Internet of Things
Panos Fitsilis   Editor
Building
on Smart Cities
Skills and
Competences
Human factors affecting smart cities
development
Internet of Things
Technology, Communications and Computing
SeriesEditors
GiancarloFortino,Rende(CS),Italy
AntonioLiotta,EdinburghNapierUniversity,SchoolofComputing,
Edinburgh,UK
The series Internet of Things - Technologies, Communications and Computing
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oftheInternetofThings.Theintentistocovertechnology(smartdevices,wireless
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in the Internet of Things research and development area, spanning the areas of
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smartobjects,andhybridintelligentsystems.
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Panos Fitsilis
Editor
Building on Smart Cities
Skills and Competences
Human factors affecting smart cities
development
Editor
PanosFitsilis
UniversityofThessaly
Larissa,Greece
ISSN2199-1073 ISSN2199-1081 (electronic)
InternetofThings
ISBN978-3-030-97817-4 ISBN978-3-030-97818-1 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97818-1
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Preface
Smart cities are complex ecosystems that use information and communication
technologies for helping their citizens and organizations deal with the challenges
of urbanization, safety, resilience, and sustainability. Their creation is a long and
laborious transformation that should not be considered mainly as a technical
challenge but as a movement to create citizen-centered ecosystems that improve
qualityoflifeandstimulateeconomicactivity.
Smart city ecosystems comprise people, organizations and businesses, policies,
technologies, legislation, and processes integrated to create the desired outcomes.
Withinthiscontext,peoplecompriseavitalconstituentintheseeffortsandahighly
skilledworkforceiskeyinrenderingsmartcityecosystemsareality.
Further, cities are important drivers for growth, employment creation, and
sustainablegreenprogress.Theyplayacentralroleinthedigitaltransformationof
theeconomy,achievingsustainablegrowthinthedigitalsectorandusingadvanced
technologytoservecitizens.
Today,moreandmoresmartcitiesareemergingworldwidecreatingasustainable
and strongly growing market. According to various market reports, it is expected
that this market will reach the size of 1 billion euros worldwide, but the most
importantfactisthatitisexpectedtochangeourdailylives.
Although for several years we were working on the development of this new
smart ecosystem, quite recently we discovered that the people factor was not
considered, sufficiently. We realized that even though billions were invested in
technologicalorurbandevelopment,notsufficientefforthadbeenmadeintraining
thenecessaryworkforcewiththeskillstofulfillthisvision.Thedevelopmentofa
smartcitywasconsidered“businessasusual”bytheITvendors,orevenyetanother
caseofmoderntechnologydeployment.However,thisisfarfromtrueassmartcities
transverseeveryaspectofourlivesandouractivities.
Asweroutinelysay,weare“livinginasoftware-enabledsocietyandwecannot
riskit”.Andsinceourlivesdependsurprisinglysomuchonthesmoothoperation
of digital services, we need to reassure ourselves and to invent new ways to
developsoftwarethatempowersustoproducereliablesoftware,withtheabilityto
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continuouslydevelop newfeaturesandeffortlesslydeployitandmakeitavailable
toourcitizensinamatterofseconds.
Therefore, digital transformation requires complementary measures that are
not overly directed to support infrastructure investment but are as well aimed at
promotingentrepreneurship,improvingdigitalskills,newparadigmsfordeveloping
transformationstrategiesandsoftware.Alloftheaboveareconsideredstrategically
important for medium-sized cities that enable them to be more competitive in the
globaleconomy.
This book has been inspired and the ideas are largely originated from the
SmartDevOps project, which was funded by Erasmus+ KA2 with Project No.:
601015-EPP-1-2018-1-EL-EPPKA2-SSA and led by the University of Thessaly
(https://smartdevops.eu). The SmartDevOps project moved towards this direction
and developed three new smartcities professions,an extensive listof smartcities-
relatedcompetences,acommunityofpracticeattheEuropeanlevel,andtheSmart
CitiesBodyofKnowledge(SCBoK),whichisanattempttosystematicallyapproach
thetopicofrequiredsmartcitiescompetences.
The book is structured in four parts. Part one is focused on skills and com-
petences and the first four chapters articulate different perspectives for skills and
competencesrequiredforsmartcitiesdevelopment.
In the chapter “Emerging Smart City Job Roles and Skills for Smart Urban
Governance” Theodor Panagiotakopoulos, Omiros Iatrellis, and Achilles Kameas
presenttheirresearchaimedatidentifyingemergingsmartcityjobrolesandskills
and providing a mapping among them to steer the development of contemporary
lifelong education programs for smart cities’ workforce. They conclude that three
primary new job roles are required for smart city professionals: the smart city
planner, the smart city IT manager, and the smart city IT officer. Moreover, they
present a framework with 102 skills classified into four categories (transversal,
generic IT, DevOps, and smart city-related skills) and the 42 most important ones
for smart cities. Transversal (soft) skills dominated the top ten, while social skills
cameinfirst.Finally,threecurriculawereproducedbydefiningwhichofthese42
skillsaremandatoryforeachsmartcityjobrole.Thisworkwasakeyoutcomeof
theSmartDevOpsERASMUS+project.
Thesecondchapterentitled“Theco-evolutionofthedigitaltransitionandappro-
priateskillsatcitylevel”byLenaTsipouriandSofiaLiarti,analyzesthemeaning
and the characteristics of smart cities. Subsequently, the chapter is presenting the
typesofskillsneededbythesmartcities’stakeholdersduringthedigitaltransition
and how to obtain them. To elaborate on this need, the chapter studies the history
andtheconceptofsmartcitiesaswellasthedimensionsandcharacteristicsrelevant
forthelabormarket.Thisallowsthereadertocomprehend,howacitycanembark
intothevirtuouscircleofco-evolution,validatingthepositiverelationshipbetween
skills,agglomeration,growth,andsustainability.
Subsequently, Paraskevi Tsoutsa and Ioannis Lampropoulos in their chapter
“Preparing for future competences: Trends arising through keyword and review
analysis” explore the topic of required competences in smart cities, using biblio-
metricanalysis.Theanalysisproducedfourdistinctclustersofconceptsregarding
Preface ix
smart cities. Further, they build a visual map of the keyword concepts and finally
theypresentaconceptualatlasoftheexistingliterature.
Inthechapter“Buildingsmartcityknowledgeandcompetencesusingproblem-
based learning in a blended learning environment,” Alina Bockshecker, Katharina
Ebner,andStefanSmolnikpresentaneducationalconceptcapableofteachingthe
transformation of cities towards smart cities. This approach integrates problem-
based learning, gamification, and virtual group work. Further, using virtual group
work, students acquire theoretical and practical, transferable knowledge and com-
petencesconcerningdiverseandcomplexconceptsofsmartcities.
Part two consists of six chapters, and it is focused on smart cities strategy
development and on how to manage smart cities projects. Smart cities strategy
developmentisanimportantprocessthathastoinvolveallcity’sstakeholders,and
itiscentraltothecity’sdigitaltransformation.
The fifth chapter entitled “The dynamic formation of a successful smart city
roadmap”byGeorgiosSiokasandAggelosTsakanikasisattemptingtocaptureand
presentthedynamicsbehindthemunicipality’sstrategicdesignandimplementation
ofsmartinitiativesfordifferenttypesofmunicipalities.
N. Kishor Narang in the chapter “Sustainable digital transformation of urban
landscape through disruptive technologies and standards” enumerates the shifting
paradigms and the required skills and competencies for sustainable digital trans-
formationofurbanlandscape.Further,hepresentsthestandardlandscapeinsmart
citiesandsmartinfrastructuredomainandhowtheyaffectdigitaltransformation.
Chapter seven entitled “Smart cities: Emerging risks and mitigation strategies”
byKonstantinosKirytopoulos,TheofanisChristopoulos,andEmmanuelDermitza-
kisisstudyinghowtoidentifyrisksanddevelopappropriateriskresponsestrategies
to address the risks that threaten the sustainability of smart cities. This chapter
intends to constitute a guide on risks and relevant remedies to practitioners and
academicswhoareinvolvedinthedevelopmentoroperationofsmartcities,aswell
as to highlight the required skills to achieve proper risk management. To achieve
this,asystematicliteraturereviewiscarriedout.
The chapter “City resilience and intelligence: Interrelation and reciprocity” by
Christos Ziozias and Leonidas Anthopoulos is addressing the question of how
to transform a smart city into a resilient one. This chapter presents the major
similaritiesanddifferencesbetweenasmartandaresilientcity,asatoolforofficials,
responsibleforplanningeachcitymodel,todecideanddefinetheproperpolicies,
strategies,andactions.Itconcludesthatresearchonthesmartcityorresilientcity
skills and competencies is in the early stages and there are insufficient findings to
compareskillsandcompetenciesforasmartorresilientcity.
Inthechapter“Smartcityprojectsevaluation:Abibliometricapproach,”Vassilis
Gerogiannis and Stella Manika attempt to provide insights into the evaluation of
smart city development and deployment projects. More specifically, they assess
how these projects successfully contribute to the development of the smart city
“intelligence”. The performed bibliographic analysis highlighted, that the success
of smart city projects, is related more to the projects’ technical parameters rather
with the social or citizen-centric factors. The results of this study map the major
x Preface
bibliographictrendsonthesubjectofsmartcitiesorprojectsevaluationorsuccess
andthenhighlightthegapofthecitizen-basedapproachintheevaluationofsmart
cities.
Chaptertenentitled“ModellingProjectManagementComplexityinSmartCities
Projects” by Vyron Damasiotis is addressing the issue of project management
complexity, especially on smart cities projects. He proposes a 12-dimensional
complexity model with 45 corresponding metrics for assessing the complexity of
smartcitiesprojectsbasedonprojectmanagementaspects,technicalcharacteristics
ofsoftwaredevelopment,etc.Thismodelcanbeusedforaccessingthecomplexity
ofsmartcitiesprojects.
Thethirdpartofthisbookisrelatedtocitizenengagementinthedevelopment
of smart cities. Citizens are engaged through strong collaboration, co-creation,
projectprioritization,etc.
AssuchthefirstchapterofthissectionbyKleanthisSitakoulisandStellaManika
is about how citizens are learning to engage in smart cities’ development. The
chapter initially analyzes the concept of civic engagement and its potential by
mappingthedominantbibliographictrends.Itthenconsiderstheutilizationofcivic
engagement and its integration in the process of developing the intelligence of a
city,viaapilotstudy.Throughitstwopillars,thechapterhighlightsandquantifies
the role of civic engagement in the effort to achieve the intelligence of a city and
concludesbyproposingactionstostrengthenandredefinethisrole.
Chapter twelve is presenting how skill development for smart cities can be
achieved not only through formal educational programs but also through other
initiatives. This chapter, by Judy Pamela Backhouse and Laila al Hadhrami,
describes an initiative in Oman to develop a group of smart city ambassadors
who are experts in certain aspects of smart cities and to use these ambassadors to
shareknowledgewithotherstakeholdersandcontributetheirexpertisetosmartcity
projects.
Chapter thirteen, “At the root of the smart cities: Smart learning ecosystems
to train smart citizens” by Carlo Giovannella, illustrates the relevance that smart
learning ecosystems have in the education of smart citizens. In this work, a smart
cityispeople-centeredsinceallcitizensmustconsiderthemselvesasanactiveagent
capableofcontributingtotheprocessthatleadstheecosystemtowardsaprogressive
increase of its smartness, an increase that would not be possible without smart
citizens. Then the chapter attempts to define the concept of smartness for citizens
andhowsmartlearningecosystemscancontributetowardsthisdirection.
In chapter fourteen entitled “Towards e-deliberation 2.0,” Vassilis Tsakanikas,
GeorgiaRokkou,andVassilisTriantafylloupresenthowe-deliberationcanbecome
amajortoolinincreasingcitizens’participationinthedecision-makingprocessand
consequentlyenhancethedemocraticprocess.
Ahmed ElBatanony and Giancarlo Suzzi explore in the chapter “No-code for
smartcities”howno-codedevelopmentplatformscouldbeusedtoempowersmart
city citizens with tools to change and improve their city systems. The no-code
movement aims to introduce software development tools that require no prior