The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
As different nations embark on a journey to become smarter, cities implement measures to adapt with population growth worldwide.
According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), the world’s urban population is expected to grow to 70 percent by 2050. This trend makes efficient resource usage and traffic even bigger challenges, making sustainable urbanization more relevant than ever.
“There’s going to be a completely different paradigm of the world coming,” Rio Yamaura, vice president of Fujitsu’s New Solution Business Division, said.
Yamaura said the concept of having a smarter city is rooted from the amalgamation of people, infrastructure and information, with people at the society’s very core which is termed Human Centric Innovation, an approach to creating business and social value by empowering people with the power of technology.
During the recently held Fujitsu Asia Conference in Makati, City, Yamaura explained that Singapore adopted this approach to create a “futuristic urban city.”
Last year, Fujitsu penned a master research collaboration agreement with Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star) and Singapore Management University to harness ICT in developing solutions for sustainable urban operations including crowd mobility and transport engineering.
The researchers use Singapore as a ‘living lab’ to examine how top-of-the-line solutions may help address real urban issues.
“Fujitsu’s visions to create a smarter city was proven by one country here in Asia,” Yamaura said.
“But the truth is, there’s no smart city—it’s the people who make it smart. With that, the company has been putting people at the center of its innovation, empowering them to harness information to create value,” he added.
The Human Centric Innovation brings together the three dimensions of people, information and infrastruc-ture to create connected solutions and services that are vital in realizing value now and in the future.
To create a roadmap for growth, Fujitsu aims to start with individuals by empowering them to openly col-laborate within their organization and in outside communities.
Next is to transform the business model by bringing together people, infrastructure and information at the enterprise level.
Then, this enterprise can co-create greater value by shap-ing emerging digital ecosystems with other governments, companies and research institutes.
“Fujitsu is trying to make a lot of innovation to improve lives, but it puts humans at the center.
This is because a smarter city can only be built by smart people,” Yamaura said. “But on top of being a technolo-gyoriented company, Fujitsu is also future-oriented.
We build machines to help us work better. But there are a lot of things that machine can’t do [on its own]. Humans are capable of transforming lives. Now, it’s all about the right timing,” he added.
“To do the right paradigm shift, someone has to lead the way and encourage everyone to land on the same page—otherwise, the vision will just be a big picture. In the next coming years, no one knows what will happen. But what’s important is to start making a paradigm shift now to prepare for the future,” Yamaura said.