Due to the rapid rise in urbanization in Africa; floods, dirty water, garbage, impassable roads, and overpopulation is now becoming the norm in cities. Senegal’s Diamniandio Lake City is one such city. Thanks to AI, however, the city wants to test a new way to turn into a smart city, so that it can retain young people and prevent migration to other more populated urban areas. The AI model will use data storage to control transport, waste, air quality, lighting, and more. Some planned projects include installation of sensors to monitor security, launching of smart vehicles, and automated waste management. Read more at iAfrikan.
Dear D –
The population of sub-Saharan Africa is expected to double three decades from now, and more than 6% of people will live in the cities. In the continent, most jobs tend to be concentrated in a single city, where young people flock to find work. The solution is to turn every city into a technology hub. Most African countries have already started constructing smart cities. Even so, there are factors that most cities have to meet before they turn to smart cities. One of these is to ditch paperwork and embrace digitalization in administration procedures, to increase access to data that will be used to generate services. The second is to increase city connectivity, preferably using apps which do not require internet connectivity. Africans in the diaspora can help the continent transit faster to smart cities through finances, skills, and innovation.