As Toronto revels in its international tech moment, much attention has been paid to the Quayside project, a joint smart city initiative between Waterfront Toronto and Alphabet subsidiary Sidewalk Labs. Not all that attention has been positive, as each new week seems to bring new controversy – over privacy, data rights, IP, secrecy, and social good.
But Quayside isn’t the only smart city project in the world. In fact, there are currently over 1,000 globally, with 500 of those in China alone.
So what it is needed to build a true smart city that works for its citizens as much as the corporate and government forces building it? Futurist (and BetaKit contributor) Nikolas Badminton has a few thoughts, which conveniently fit into an easy-to-remember acronym.
Beyond the philosophical, Badminton also has thoughts on the political and practical problems causing tensions on Toronto’s waterfront. Of course, solving that riddle requires answering a few more questions: namely, who owns the assets?
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