February 18, 2016, Puebla: Fostering a healthy city, creating jobs and ensure dignity: These are the main goals of mayors around the globe. But there is one major problem OASC chair Martin Brynskov explained to the participants of the plenary session ‘Technology and Innovation for the people’:  “There is a lot of money out there – public and private investment – but it is not ready to be invested.”

Create a global smart city market – create local jobs

The reason for their hesitation towards investment is simple: Investors have doubts because “there is no Smart City Market, it is fragmented.” They cannot anticipate the outcomes of any investments in Smart Cities, said Brynskov.

This market fragmentation is one of the reasons why cities are joining the Open and Agile Smart Cities initiative according to Brynskov:  It takes a lot of collaboration to create a global Smart City market and what OASC can do is to link up the different initiatives and create a global market.

The last plenary session of the Smart City Expo in Puebla, Mexico, addressed different approaches to putting these new technologies at the service of the people. One of those approaches is the OASC initiative. Experts, city officials and academics took part in this plenary to discover how ICT changes life in cities.

Re-watch the whole speech about the development of Smart Cities and the role of OASC (duration < 10 minutes) by Martin Brynskov, starting at 53:00 and read more about the AU Smart Cities participation in the Smart City Expo in Mexico and OASC activities at the Smart City Expo Puebla.