Big data at the heart of smart cities

Abstract

Until recently, constraints of computer memory, retrieval, and processing limited the use of data to entities who could afford supercomputers. Since hardware and memory have declined in price and improved functionality and open-source software has been developed, big data analytics have been democratized. For example, using smart phone data, Sri Lankan city of Colombo has analysed population nodes, and unlike expensive industry surveys, can pinpoint locales as “leaning commercial” or “leaning residential.” To feed data, infrastructure investments are required. But a city becomes smart only when its functioning improves due to enhanced feedback, and creative responses are made.