Five Innovations that Will Change Cities in the Next Five Years

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Buildings that know when they need to be fixed before something breaks; sensors that tell the fire department details of a fire before they receive the emergency phone call; smart water and sewage systems that filter and recycle water. . . . .

Its that time of year here at IBM - when look to the future and make five predictions of technological trends that will change the way we live in the next five years. Given the current attention to making our cities smarter, for this years we have focused on five innovations that will change our cities in the next five years.

Importantly, the list is intended to serve as a discussion point to discuss - and debate - the prospects for our cities and how progress can be made.

If theres one common thread in all of the advances we see in the coming years, its the ability to monitor our environment with sensors and the application of analytics complex algorithms baked into software to make decisions based on all of that data. In reality, its what weve been talking about for the past year here on this blog, but we are just now beginning to see these efforts implemented at the city level to really change how cities work.

Analytics will predict the patterns of how diseases will spread, will enable buildings to evaluate the relationships between their systems and provide real-time information to management, will enable city smart grids to draw on clean energy during peak and off peak hours, find water leaks and more efficient ways to move water, and predict emergencies before they happen to limit their impact.

While these are predictions for the future, in each case the innovation is rooted in work we are just beginning to see pop up with some of our city clients or in our labs today. (less info)