Let’s build Smart Cities for a Smart World.

Talk of Isam Shahrour at Sciences Po Paris.November 13, 2015.

I would like to share with you one of themost vibrating experience in my life,which concerns Smart Cities.

Very young, I had a big dream to become anengineer.I wanted to re-build my house, and build mycountry.

At the age of 14, I had to leave my home town Tulkarem to Amman in Jordan. With a scholarship, I came to France. First of all, at the University Lille1 in the North of France and then at the School of Civil Engineering “Ponts et Chaussées” in Paris.

Excited by the field of civil engineering, I joined the University Lille1 as a faculty member to work in the challenging field of “complex constructions in civil engineering.”

First I focused on constructions, and later on the interaction of constructions with urban environment.

In 2007, I was elected Vice President research of the University Lille 1,

one of the major universities in France in the field of Science and

Technology.

I worked during 5 years on large scale and multidisciplinary research

projects.

I was also involved in the territorial socio-economic development

via, research, innovation and digital technology.

Urban Engineering

Sustainability

Digital Technology

In 2011, I had a turning point in my career. I launched a new research topic, that combines Urban Engineering, sustainability and digital technology, which resulted in a large scale project concerning “Smart Grid” and latter on “Smart Cities”.

Smart GridSmart City

I have been fascinated by this new topic: we have to be

attentive to the City, which is the Center of the world

civilization.

With reference to Shakespeare “What is the city but the

people?” we have to be attentive to people, which

constitutes for me one of the highest value.

Today the city has a major role. It accounts for 80 % of the world economic activity.

It is responsible for 80% of the greenhouse emission,

which is one of the largest challenge of our planet.

If we want to reduce the greenhouse emission, we

have to focus on the City.

Developed Developed

Less developed

The  City  faces  the  crisis  of  rapid  population  growth:  In  the  coming  years,  the  City  in  less  developed  countries  has  to  host  

2  billions  of  new  citizens.    

0

10

20

30

40

Tokyo Calcuta Lagos

1975 2000 2025

In the coming years, the population of Lagos will increase from 12 to 30 millions.

The City has similarities with biological systemThe  City underground  is  crowded  by  urban  network,  which  act  as  the cardiovascular  and  nervous  systems  that  transport  oxygen,  nutrients,  hormones  and  wastes  throughout  the  body.  

Many large cities operate with urban networks which were designed for small cities, with insufficient maintenance. Imagine an adult who lives with the cardio-vascularsystem of a child.

That's, why today the city suffers from large jams and form insecure transport.

The City suffers also from high pollution, which kills every year around 7 millions of inhabitants and form increasing floods and natural disasters.

Suffer from the absence of urban services:• 1 billon do not have access to drinking water.• 2.5 billons do not have access to sewage service.• Around 1 billion still live in slums.

The situation of the City is critical:The City should be transformed to meet today’s andtomorrow’s challenges

In a crisis period, we have to be innovative, we haveto thing outside the box.

The question is how the digital revolution could help

us to overcome the City crisis.

The digital revolution combines: • The internet, which enables people to access to billions of devices, • the social networks which allows large and real time connection

around the world • The mobile revolution, which allow connection from every where.

Smart sensors• Measure • Analyze data• Communicate• Act

The internet of things extended connection to objects.• Every object could be identified and connected to other objects. • With the smart sensors, objects become intelligent, they can

measure, store, analyze, communicate and take actions.

• See• Analyze• Understand• Improve

Real time

Digital technology allows to follow urban infrastructures.We can see what happens, analyze the data to understand and to improve both the security and efficiency of infrastructures and related services.

Thanks to this technology, the buried infrastructures become visible.When we see things, we make progress.

Steve Jobs:Technology alone is not enough.It’s technology married with liberal arts; married with humanities, that yields us the results that make our hearts sing.

In the city, we have to associate the digital technology to the collective intelligence.

We wanted to learn from large a scale demonstrator

In the early 2011, the Smart City concept was new. That’s why we started the construction of the large scale Smart City demonstrator (SunRise) in order to learn about this new concept.

The SunRise demonstrator was built on the Scientific campus in the North of France, which is equivalent to a town of 25000 inhabitants. It includes around 100 km of urban infrastructure.

We worked with local authorities, water and energy providers, start-ups and a high number of Master Degree and PhD students.

We monitored the urban networks

We collected and analyzed large quantity of data

SunRise has become a major Smart City project: • In the ppriorities of the 3rd industrial revolution “Nord Pas de Calais”• In the priorities of the region-state strategic plan• European demonstrator “SmartWater4Europe”• Demonstrator of the international association W-Smart

We have leaned that:

2) The Smart City is an effective solution for:

1) The collective intelligence allows us to overcome the lack of resources.

For less developed countries, the Smart City allows to:• Reduce construction and operating costs.• Enhance sustainability implementation• Improve education and capacity building.

Young, I had a dream to become an engineer, and I became an engineer.

Today, my dream is to build Smart Cities. I hope that I could build Smart Cities across the world.

I invite all of you to share this dream to build Smart Cities for a Smart World.