By Adam Beck, Executive Director, Smart Cities Council ANZ
On Tuesday morning, in Sydney, something very interesting happened. Several industry leaders came together to discuss smart cities standards, and ‘check-in’ on how the digital transformation of Australia’s built environment was going.
We covered a lot of territory at this event. Our collaborators, Consult Australia, released a set of national principles for a digital built environment. Through enabling digital technologies to capture, plan, create, build, connect, and manage our built environments, Australian cities have a better chance to be more liveable. From the application of Building Information Modelling, City Information Modelling, and GIS, among other tools, we can deliver significant enhancements to cities, and therefore their citizens.
We heard from Oliver Richards from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet on the evolving Cities Performance Framework project that will help in negotiating city deals as well as provide industry with a platform to view critical data on the performance of Australia’s largest 21 cities. Leadership and governance in the smart city was explored by Kate Deacon from the City of Sydney, and Angela Bee Chan, Founder of Hackathons Australia, shared her perspectives on building a culture of disruption and innovation in industry.
Justin Anderson of KPMG and the Hypercat Alliance along with PCSG’s Gavin Cotterill both shared the UK’s journey on collaborative innovation in the built environment, the development of smart cities standards, and the connections emerging between BIM, IoT, and smart cities. It was informative, and inspirational. And it was evident that Australia really didn’t have a plan for the digital transformation our cities. What we did have – dated industry reports, state-by-state BIM approaches, Hypercat, random committee initiatives, no smart cities strategy standards – was far from being coordinated.
Whilst frustrating, it was clear we have a reason to come closer together, across industry and government. To collaborate, and build consensus. As smart cities connections between Australia and the UK get tighter, we have opportunities to pilot smart cities standards in Australia, such as those developed by the British Research Institution.
SCCANZ has identified smart cities standards as a key agenda for its 2017/18 program of activities. With strong relationships with like-minded organisations – such as Consult Australia, the Internet of Things Alliance Australia, and IPWEA – we will build the necessary narrative, undertake the required engagement, and build a program of opportunities that will help to underpin a thriving smart cities movement.
There is much more to come on this topic from SCCANZ.
