Let's build a smarter planet, city by city.
Tab navigation
- Why cities?- selected tab,
- Building smarter cities
- Berlin 2009
- New York City 2009
A planet of smarter cities
By 2050, city dwellers are expected to make up 70 percent of the Earth's total population, spiking from approximately 3.3 billion people today to a breathtaking 6.4 billion. That gives us only 40 years to prepare our cities and our planet for an inflow of new inhabitants comparable to more than 10 United States of Americas.
How do we prepare our cities to absorb this many people? How must our cities transform to handle exponentially greater economic, societal and environmental complexity?
Let's build a smarter planet, city by city.
Berlin: June 23-24, 2009
New York City: October 1-2, 2009
Shanghai: 2010
IBM is convening a series of three conversations on how to build smarter cities. The first took place in Berlin on June 23-24. The second will take place in New York on October 1-2, and the third will take place in Shanghai next year.
These unique gatherings, SmarterCities, will explore how progressive cities are modernizing to spur economic development, drive greater innovation, transform for competitive advantage and meet the pressing demands of a more engaged and intelligent citizenry. They will be hosted by IBM in collaboration with major partners across the globe.
A case for smarter cities
Last year, our planet reached an important milestone: for the first time in history, the majority of the world’s population resided in cities. This shift from a rural concentration of people to an urban one took tens of thousands of years to achieve – and now it's accelerating at rapid speed towards unprecedented urbanization.
Without a doubt, this is one of the greatest issues of our lifetime.
All over the globe in city halls, agency offices and national capitals, leaders are working furiously to address these changing demographics, rethink the city ecosystem and satisfy the needs of a motivated populace. As leaders deliberate, informed urban citizens are demanding 24/7 connectivity, smart electricity grids, efficient transportation networks, safe food and water, sustainable living and transparent civil services – just to keep pace with life and work in emerging knowledge-based economies. As a result, all these demands are placing a huge strain on city infrastructures and the planet’s resources. We need a smarter approach.
Thankfully, help is at hand.
