Capitalizing on Disruption on the Road to City Digital Transformation | Program - 2017

The concept of a smart city is not new, nevertheless, despite all the obvious benefits of smart cities, until we see vivid and numerous examples of the complex transformation of large cities. What is the reason for this? Most often, city administrations respond that they do not have the means to implement large-scale projects. Another reason is organizational, verticalization of city departments, whereby the demand for smart subsystems of urban management is often formed by individual departments for their specific purposes. One of the main criteria for selecting projects is the cost of the solution, the availability of a budget for implementation and the ability of technologies to solve the operational tasks of a particular department. There is an increasing demand for the possibility of attracting private investment in projects related to urban infrastructure, and switching to a service model for the use of urban assets. Critical is the ability of technology companies and city administrations to identify and create solutions in terms of economy and return on investment. If several of these solutions can be identified and a financial partner willing to take risks under PPPs is involved, it is much easier for the administration to launch the project on a city or a few districts or even agglomeration. Also, it becomes possible to implement additional solutions with low direct economic returns, by cross-subsidizing incremental revenues or savings generated by solutions with high economic returns. As part of the presentation, practical approaches to the planning and organization of smart cities projects using digital technologies and opportunities for the monetization of infrastructure investments will be considered. Also, examples of digital solutions with high return on investments made will be analyzed, allowing to implement projects in conditions of limited or total absence of state financing due to increase of economic efficiency, safety, quality and formation of opportunities to create new services and products.