Page 50 - Research & Innovation Report 2020

SCIENCE

The smart city has many faces

During her PhD on smart cities, Dr Anthea van der Hoogen put herself in the position of a citizen,
worker and student to see how the smart cities of Gqeberha and East London should function.

“Cities in South Africa are classified as ‘smart’, but who gains value solar solutions; they can be a small solution that helps a community
from the initiatives, who are the stakeholders and are smart city to survive. While the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud, mobile and
initiatives designed with all the users in mind? I set out to research web applications, WiFi hotspots and Internet are key smart city
this,” says Dr van der Hoogen from the Department of Computing initiatives, so are initiatives such as using recycled material to build
Sciences, who attained her doctorate in July 2021. She was the community halls and schools. This adds to communities learning to
recipient of an NRF Black Academics Advancement Programme use what they have at their disposal.”
(BAAP) grant from 2019 to 2021.
When lockdown happened in 2020 it was a curveball for Dr van
The title of her dissertation is “A Value Alignment Smart City der Hoogen, whose approach was to experience the cities first-
Stakeholder (VASCS) Model” in which she uses this model in hand and to engage with a wide range of communities. She had to
Gqeberha and East London to establish the success factors of their change her data collection to online interviews, which sped up the
smart city initiatives. process. “I did, however, miss out on meeting users and citizens
who don’t have access to online facilities, and with whom I would
“The BAAP grant gave me the opportunity to focus on my research, have engaged in person to see how the smart city does or doesn’t
as lecturing full time and trying to do research between was not play out in their lives and how COVID-19 affected them.”
giving me enough time,” says Dr van der Hoogen. “Through
the BAAP, I was able to attend conferences in 2019 where I was For example, one of the projects that was shut down in Nelson
exposed to experts in the smart city field worldwide. The Americas’ Mandela Bay during lockdown was the ReTrade recycling initiative
Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS) held in Cancun in the Walmer Heights community where citizens help to keep their
in Mexico in August 2019, for example, was a once in a lifetime environment clean by taking recyclable items to a recycling site
opportunity and I was able to get an international expert review where they trade them for goods, including food and toiletries.
of the model I was proposing for my study; they validated it and
guided me where I could improve. “COVID-19 exposed how many people are instantly excluded
from smart city initiatives in a crisis; how many people do not have
“What stood out for me when engaging with the experts is they connectivity and access to data and how the digital and physical
said that smart city solutions don’t need to be Tesla-scale or mega divide impacts decision-making. For other citizens, the pandemic

“ ... smart city solutions don’t need to

be Tesla-scale or mega solar solutions;

they can be a small solution that helps a

community to survive.”

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