Paul Shindler is Global Future Cities Lead at SAP where he oversees product and portfolio management, go-to-market strategy, and field enablement related to cities and urban settlements. This article was reposted with rights from the author.
I recently had the privilege to join a panel discussion at Smart City Expo on Fostering Urban Livability and Resilience. Preparing this session I asked myself the question: “What does fostering urban resilience and livability actually mean?” After a little research I came to the conclusion that it seems to mean a lot of different things to different people.
Traditionally urban resilience was focused on disaster preparedness and response. However this view seems to be changing towards a broader definition of resilience. I picked three examples highlighting different approaches:
UN-HABITAT defines urban resilience as follows: “Resilience refers to the ability of human settlements to withstand and to recover quickly from any plausible hazards. Resilience against crises not only refers to reducing risks and damage from disasters (i.e. loss of lives and assets), but also the ability to quickly bounce back to a stable state.”
World Bank and Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery focus in their “Building Urban Resilience” report on disaster resilience as well but then again broaden the focus by breaking urban resilience down into four components: infrastructural, institutional, economic, and social.
100 Resilient Cities, whose mission is to help “cities around the world become more resilient to the physical, social, and economic challenges that are a growing part of the 21st century.”, are supporting “the adoption and incorporation of a view of resilience that includes not just the shocks – earthquakes, fires, floods, etc. – but also the stresses that weaken the fabric of a city on a day to day or cyclical basis.”
Disaster resilience is still a very important aspect of urban resilience as for example evidenced by a recent report by Swiss Re “Mind the risk: A global ranking of cities under threat from natural disasters”. With more and more people living in the confined space of cities the potential impact of natural disasters is increasing dramatically.
For the purpose of this blog post I would like to follow the broader definition of resilience that is becoming increasingly common these days. Broadening our focus and including social and economic challenges and stresses allows – in my experience – for a more holistic approach. In addition I would also like to include the aspect of livability. Accordingly when talking about Urban Resilience in the context of SAP’s Future Cities program we are focusing on four main areas:
Public Safety & Security: Keeping people safe through greater community preparedness, increased threat anticipation, improved service delivery, faster resolution, and enhanced resilience.
Healthy & Caring Populations: Helping secure a high quality of life for current and future generations by improving health, protecting the most vulnerable citizens, and helping to ensure social justice.
Sustainable Communities: Enabling every aspect of the government to become more collaborative and engaging with every faction of the community in an open, transparent, and inclusive manner.
Thriving Sports & Culture: Shaping the culture and shared experiences that turn citizens into a community, fostering an open culture to lay a foundation for increased collaboration, and establishing an inclusive society that is free, diverse, and fair.
At this point I would like to mention that technology obviously is only one part of the jigsaw in the quest for improving urban livability and resilience. However it is a part that I feel is becoming increasingly important.
In the following section I want to share a few customer examples showing the impact technology can have on the ability of a city or region to keep people safe and to proactively address the factors that make it a great place to live and work. All four a great examples for different aspects of resilience:
City of Buenos Aires – Public Safety & Security / Environmental Resilience
Founded in 1580 at the mouth of Rio Plata, Buenos Aires is subject to annual torrential rains. Given its aging infrastructure and dense population, flooding has historically been an issue. Clogged storm drains have slowed down the city, caused property damage, and even resulted in lost lives over the years. But recently, after three days of torrential rainfall, the city did not experience any flooding at all. Using the SAP HANA ® platform to analyze real-time sensor data from storm drains and SAP ® Mobile Platform to ensure streets and drains are clear, the City of Buenos Aires is well prepared to mitigate risks caused by heavy rains. It is using SAP solutions to maintain its infrastructure, manage complex contractor and supplier relationships, elevate its services, and improve lives.
State of Indiana – Healthy & Caring Populations / Social Resilience
Governor Mike Pence has tasked his IT and budget teams to develop a comprehensive, enterprise-wide data management system to help government agencies to make use of huge volumes of data stored in various systems. The Management and Performance Hub (MPH) project is intended to create a citizen-centric IT architecture, placing “Hoosiers” at the center of all interactions. The MHP initiative uses the SAP HANA ® platform in combination with Predictive Analytics to quickly gather and analyze data to drive improvements. Three examples of priority areas are:
Infant Mortality: Lower the rate of 7.7 deaths per 1.000 births
Recidivism: Giving ex-convicts the best second chances possible
Safer roads: Preventing fatal traffic accidents
These and other related initiatives will make life in the State of Indiana even better.
(Click image for additional information)
However fostering urban livability and resilience is not a task that can be accomplished by public sector alone. It requires the help of private sector entities and NGOs alike.
Plan International – Sustainable Communities & Cultural Resilience
Founded over 75 years ago Plan International is one of the oldest and largest child welfare organizations in the world. Their programs and services extend to children across the developing world. Today, Plan International employs 10,000 staff and utilizes over 6,000 volunteers. They needed a better way to monitor and manage these resources to ensure they were being used effectively, delivering the most support to the children they are designed to help. Plan International decided to employ a single, global HR system and coordinated processes to enable better decision making, empower employees, improve efficiencies, and save costs. They chose SAP and SAP Cloud for Human Resources to meet this need.
(Click image for additional information)
PlaNetFinance – Sustainable Communities & Economic Resilience
SAP and PlaNet Finance aim to improve the microfinance sector through a combination of microfinancing, the use of new technology and the creation of value-chain extensions that help entrepreneurs at the base of the economic pyramid create sustainable businesses. For their first joint field initiative, SAP and PlaNet Finance have carefully studied the shea nut value chain in northern Ghana to identify how microfinance, education and technology can help improve the incomes and living conditions of women who pick and process the nuts into shea butter. Although the production of shea butter, used in food and cosmetics, is one of the most accessible income-generating activities for rural women in Ghana, their incomes are unstable due to a lack of market information, inadequate business knowledge and low negotiating power. The joint initiative will develop groups of shea nut harvesters and provide them training on how to effectively work together to help drive maximum success. Women will also be trained in after-harvest nut treatments and improved techniques for shea butter production. Each group will be equipped with a mobile phone to manage orders and facilitate the microfinance institution’s follow-up on loans. Along with the technology solutions from SAP and PlaNet Finance, this regrouping will help increase yield, improve bargaining power, enhance product quality and offer better management of contractual relations with buyers.
(Click image for video)
I hope you found this blog post interesting and I look forward to hearing your favorite stories on how technology can improve city dwellers’ lives in the comments below. Last but not least a big thank you to my peers on the panel. Duncan Fraser, Kilian Kleinschmidt, Manuel Valdes Lopez, and Carlos Moreno, thanks for sharing your amazing stories.
- Paul