Ian Khan
Hello, friends, this is Ian Khan and Today is August six. It’s a Thursday, and I’m super excited to be on this future readiness live stream with a really good friend of mine, Dr. Jonathan Reichental. Today is when his new book smart cities for dummies future debuts on on in the Canadian market. And there’s a lot to talk about. There’s tons of people registered for this. And we’re going to get started and talk about the emergence of smart cities. What do they really mean for us? Why should we care? Why Jonathan wrote that book? And we’re going to ask him some personal questions. Why did you write the book and there’s a ton of great questions that are coming along. If you’re watching this, then you’re probably either on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, live, or Twitter. And please keep your comments coming. I can receive them here at the back end. And we’ll take questions as we go on. And we’re super excited to to be here. Let me do this. Let me introduce Jonathan, as I know him, and and how we met and and how he came into the picture and how I came into his into into the picture as well. So Jonathan, and I, we’ve worked on some really amazing initiatives. Over the last few years, we’ve done some work with the government of the UAE, United Arab Emirates, the Prime Minister’s office in the UAE. And one thing led to the other. And here we are collaborating on on a podcast on a live stream. When Johnson wrote started writing this book, I was really excited, because the industry does not have a book like this. Yes, we have a lot of information about smart cities, but nothing that explains it to us in a way that he’s done in smart cities for Dummies. And that’s it. That’s really it. Without any further ado, let me bring Jonathan on board. And we will take it from there. Jonathan, welcome to econ show. And this is the future readiness live stream. And we are debuting two things today we’re debuting a series that I’m calling the future readiness live stream. This is all about future readiness. What do you do in your business, career life, and so on. And also, we’re doing the Canadian launch for your book, which my friend we have right here as well is smart cities for Dummies. There you go. All our viewers, this book is incredible. You’ve got to buy it. And I’ll send you a link on this in the next few minutes. Jonathan, tell me about yourself. Where did you come from? Like Where? Who are you give me a background.
Jonathan Reichental
Thank you. And hey, it’s so great to see you at the chat with you. Yeah, I consider you such a great friend and a mentor and an inspiration for me. So it’s great to be talking with you today. Last time we spoke I had you on my little podcast drinking wine talking tech and that that was wonderful. You were talking about your your new documentary that you’re working on regarding artificial intelligence. So thanks for the question. I’m, I’m, by the way, just thrilled to be launching smart cities for dummies in Canada today. One of my favorite places in the country that I go to often. I go to Toronto a lot, and many other places. So it’s just a thrill. And I hope that I get to see many of my friends there again and colleagues. So some people the first thing they recognize with me is my accents, right? Where they kind of try to figure it out. They think you know, there’s an American accent there. But is there English or South African in there? And I’ll tell you, I was born in Ireland, in Ireland and Dublin City, and grew up there. I came to the United States as a young adult with a suitcase and a green card. And that was it. No job. No one I I did when I got here. I did stay with some second cousins in Florida. But I was starting life a new and it was just you know, back in my early 20s it was a big adventure. Coming to America, you know, the land of Starsky and Hutch and the ATM and Hill Street Blues, you know, on Sesame Street. I’m showing my age a little bit there. But yeah, I I’m a tech guy and you know, be working in the tech industry in Ireland. And then when it came to us, it was obvious that I was going to continue to be a tech guy. Worked for a big consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers for a long time. Almost 15 years, I think. And I had progressively different, you know it leadership roles. My last job with PricewaterhouseCoopers, or today they’re known as PwC. My last job was the director of innovation and technology innovation, I got to say that that was like, you know, doing your hobby and getting paid for it. I say that a lot. But it’s, it’s worth repeating. Because everybody should try to do the things they love and make it a profession, because that that’s a that’s a good quality of life. And then I became a CIO with O’Reilly Media, working with Tim O’Reilly and his team menza had to move from Florida over to California. And I was there for a couple of years. And then I got a call from out of nowhere from a headhunter to come and work for government. And so I, I, I said, Okay, let me let me know, more or less explain to me what this opportunity is. And you know, and so they wanted me to be the CIO, and you know, the Chief Technology Officer for the birthplace of Silicon Valley, Palo Alto places. And so that’s an interesting place to work in government, you know, how could we leverage the startups in the Silicon Valley ecosystem, to deliver government better and differently, you know, and, and that’s, I sort of embarked on a seven year experiment, actually, you know, running this route of helping to run the city, leading the technology efforts. And I fell in love with cities, I basically fell in love with cities, and I had the opportunity and such a privilege to be invited to speak to governments all over the world to help them think about how they could deliver better services and improve the quality of life. And so that’s, and that’s an abbreviated version of my story. But those are the some of the highlights. And you know, that story that that education I got in cities, and that passion that I grew for cities is now manifested in this book.
Ian Khan
Excellent, excellent, excellent. I love how we’re starting off and we’ve already got comments coming in. I’m going to put one up on the on the screen. Lou says, I was about to see that you’re dating yourself. Thank you. And now I know that you know, dinosaurs are definitely extinct and left one behind.
Jonathan Reichental
I remember being a kid in Dublin, in Dublin, Ireland, and I was out in the in the backyard, what we call the garden over there. And my Oh, my middle brother, Gideon said, Jonathan come in. And I really I must have been six or seven, maybe even younger. Yeah. And I ran in front of the TV like cuz he said, Look what’s on. And it was a show, all just with puppets, just the puppets. And it was the Muppet Show was the first episode of The Muppet Show. And to us, this was, this was joy. This was Fantasyland. Yeah. And I fell in love with the Muppets.
Ian Khan
Going back to those years, Jonathan, you know, X amount of years. 20 3040. x, you know that that range of years? Don’t go too far. Keep on being very conservative. Do I mean, we had a television set? Right? We had a television set that was the center of life, maybe a radio as well. But no internet, no cable TV, no. smart devices. And I’m trying to think about the evolution of a smart city. There was no concept perhaps, of a smart city. I think cities were still struggling with basic infrastructure, electricity, power grid, and, and a bunch of those things. Do you remember living in you and you lived in Dublin? Right?
Jonathan Reichental
Yeah.
Ian Khan
Do you remember life as a kid in a city in the city of Dublin? What was life for? For you back then in terms of city infrastructure? Yeah,
Jonathan Reichental
yeah. Well, look, let’s give the audience a view into the time period, we’re talking about the 1970s. So I you know, I grew up in the in the mid 1970s. And, you know, now it’s 2020, would you say 2020? That’s almost 50 years. And the world is very different. really different in so many ways. You know, there was no notion of climate change or the climate crisis. You know, there was, you know, China was a undeveloped country for the most part, you know, in our, our, one of our favorite places, Dubai, you know, was just a few settlements in the desert. So, you know, the, and of course, the internet arrived and, you know, electronics and the smartphone and now artificial intelligence and blockchain and others, where the world is absolutely different from the 1970s. You know, I always think I feel I was very fortunate, but maybe every child thinks this when they ultimately grew up, you know, the times were really quaint, you know, growing up Dublin, I always say I had a wonderful childhood, it was very peaceful. Even though Ireland had the troubles, you know, the, unfortunately, the terrorism that was happening in the north of the country, for the most part, it didn’t impact our lives. But it was, you know, it was it was, you know, it was Ireland is cold and rainy. And, and all I remember the sunny days running around outside, you know, as kids, we always think of that, think of the nice times. But yeah, you know, it is over the last 40 or 50 years that as more and more people have moved into cities, it really has become by 2008, the majority of humans now live in cities over 50, you know, 55% now. And so, you know, we went from being more of a rural world, to an urban world, that’s a great transformation that, you know, the, the the future now belongs to cities, our future belongs to cities. So we, what we’ve seen in the last 50 years is massive accelerated urbanization. I mean, you think, look, look, if you get a chance, look at a picture of Shanghai in 1970. Right, and look at a picture of Shanghai in 2020. I mean, it’s, in every way, it’s transformational. And, and this is not slowing down, you know, the urbanization of the planet is rapid. We we have about, you know, three up to 3 million of them, somewhere between one to 3 million people per week move into cities, we’re building the equivalent of 40 New York cities. So think about this statistic. We’re building the equivalent of 40. urban areas, urban infrastructure, the size of New York City every month, every month, these statistics are staggering. I will do that for the next 30 years. We’ll do that for the next 30 years. So a very different world. You know, it’s hard now to imagine, we didn’t have any mobility, right? Any any cellular technology that was widely available. No such thing as Internet again, my last point on this when, you know, as we entered the 1980s, it was my older brother, David, who was the tech guy in the house, and he brought the Commodore VIC 20. There, I’m dating myself again, they come out of Vic 20, into the house, and then the Commodore 64. Yeah. And we hooked it up to the telephone. And we would have dial up bulletin services, you know, we use copies, we use compuserve. And I just want to share one more thing, because I think this will be a little giggle for a lot of us. Yeah. We could serve, we could serve an information system on the TV. It was called Ceefax, c e, fa x. And it was funny, I was wondering, a few months ago, whether it still existed, and yes, it is a it is a website today. But we use the television remote to call up information services. So a different type of you know, more, a more, what appears to be a quieter time.
Ian Khan
Amazing, I love it. And, you know, I still you mentioned the Commodore 64. I remember my first interaction with a computer being with a BBC Micro. And those are the computers we had in our, in our computer lab in our school. And we bought I think get one hour or half an hour every week. And although we would just do basic, literally basic multiplication and started playing Pac Man on it afterwards. It was fascinating to see what this thing was. And I know it’s been, you know, a few decades, 20 3040 years since that era has passed. But I really believe that we’ve gone through a huge progression in terms of how we live, what is normal to us now. I mean, our devices, our cell phones, whatever you use, I don’t think anyone living in a civilized society with access to modern amenities infrastructure can be happy without these devices and technology as it is, um, internet connectivity is now a necessity. It’s a utility that and we accept expect a certain level of minimum quality, like bandwidth quality you absolutely expected. And so we are gone. We’ve just rapidly accelerated this pace. Let’s let’s talk about your book. So your book is incredible. The book is out. It’s called Smart Cities for dummies and people like me, and many others out there who want to know what exactly is a smart city I think you’ve done an incredible job by by toiling away the midnight hours and writing this book for the last few months. I know that journey that you’ve taken undertaken. Tell us about what how did you approach this book? What did you think about when you started writing the book. What did you think you were going to write about? Tell us about that process?
Jonathan Reichental
Yeah, sure, sure. And that’s, I appreciate the question coming from an author yourself. You’ve had a couple of successful books yourself. Just I wanted to comment on one point you said about conductivity? And that’ll answer your question, which is, you know, you and I, and probably everybody, I would say, everyone who watch this woke up, and we had internet access, we probably checked our smartphone. Right? It’s worth noting that about 45% of the world, you know, about 3 billion people did not check the internet this morning, cuz they don’t have access to it. You know, we’re not a connected world yet, you might think we are. But we still have a long way to connect the rest of humanity. And it’s, we’re not talking small numbers here, we’re talking three, 3 billion people. Likewise, by the way, not everybody has electricity today, you know, the project to to deploy electricity, which started in the 1800s is still ongoing, there’s still about 800 million people in the world 800 million, who don’t have electricity, right? Yes, yeah. So you know, that the the building of good infrastructure, you know, making available facilities and capabilities of a 21st century world are not evenly distributed. That’s a project we have to continue to work on. So not getting back back to your book. You know, when I was at the city of Palo Alto, I certainly had an interest in writing, but I was so consumed by the work at the city. And I made a commitment that, you know, when I leave, I would, I would really focus on on some writing. And just by complete coincidence, I was approached by Wiley Wiley is a, you know, very well respected large publishing company global. And they they called me and they said, Would you we, we’d like you to write a book on the future of cities. And I said, Yeah, let’s, that’s exactly what I wanted to do. And later on, we, we decided we would put it into the dummies series, which is a fabulous brand and a huge success around the world. And my goal was to write a book that didn’t exist, you know, my, my goal was to write a book, that was not theory. So you can buy plenty of smart city books. Many of them are academic, you know, there’s a variety of different types. But I wanted to write one that was a how to guide I wanted to capture for people the steps you take, you know, to build a smart, smarter, more sustainable community and city specifically. And so the book is really that that sort of product I, you know, each chapter is how to create a smart city strategy, how to deploy new technologies, how to create a innovation district, you know, what does climate change mean to cities? And how do we mitigate? And you’re not your questions, really, sort of straightforward questions like, how do we afford this stuff? You know, we got to talk about procurement when we talk about investing in our cities. So I talk a lot about that about regulations and policies and important things like water, right? How do we better manage that rare resource of, of drinking water, the future of power, which was fascinating to me, you know, as we, as we sort of traverse this great global transformation from a carbon based energy world, to a non carbon, more sustainable energy based world with, by the way with solar, and wind being, you know, dominant players of the next few decades. So what it is, is, is my attempt as an educator, which I fundamentally am to help people understand how we can build better cities so we can have a better quality of life. It it’s not a technology book, although technologies in it, it’s actually a book about us. It’s a book about people. That’s really important.
Ian Khan
One of the things that that comes to, of course, comes to mind when you talk about smart cities is it might sound technical, it might sound a topic that, you know, people like yourselves and other technologists might want to talk to each other about, but it’s really about everyday living. It’s really about how does electricity gets served to you at your home and to understand the environment that you’re living in the infrastructure laid out and where we’re headed. I always put a lot of emphasis on the fact that we have to become a learning community, a learning generation where we are learning constantly about new things. And I think the book does an incredible job because it’s explains really complex topics in a very simple format that everybody can understand. And we can see that success happening. Because there’s tons of pictures that you keep on posting of people and their kids reading the book. And, and and doing that. Yeah, so that’s incredible.
Jonathan Reichental
So I just want to add to that I, you know, I wrote the book for everybody, but I knew that city managers, Chief Technology officers, you know, elected officials, you know, your typical sort of government, portfolio, people are going to be interested. But I’ve been absolutely blown away by how many children love the book, this has been one of the biggest surprises. It’s, it’s a fun book, it’s enlightening. And that, you know, lots of nice little pictures and diagrams and things. You know, kids are interested in their communities. And they’re, they’re really fascinated by the, you know, the the cities in which they live. So that’s been a lovely, lovely surprise for me.
Ian Khan
Incredible. So time is flying, Jonathan, we’ve got to make the best off of this. I’m going to encourage all viewers to post a question ask a question. I see a lot of friends have tuned in and people from different industries, your question about your industry and its connection with smart cities. ie V’s, urban transportation, health care, education, everything is connected with smart cities. What I also want to do, Jonathan has asked you to maybe read a passage or a few parts from the book that you think we should really, that really fit in with the context of today and where we are. So I want you to do that. I also want to talk about current events, and its relationship to smart cities, and the internet, just so that we understand, hey, this is the world we live in. So let’s start with with current events, and then we’ll go to the reading. So sure, in current events, we have things such as elections, we have a pandemic that we’re fighting, the entire world is engulfed in it. We also have a very tragic incident that has taken place in Beirut, just just a day ago, where this entire dump off ammonium nitrate just exploded, it exploded. And 130 plus people are dead. So as a as a as a world, we’re dealing with multiple challenges, not even mentioning the state of health care in places where people cannot access health care less, I think less, I think about 2 billion people do not have access to basic health care in the world, right. So that’s the state we’re living in. Let’s talk about current events. Let’s talk about these three things. impact and connection of smart cities to safety of people keeping that explosion in mind, to the pandemic disease, healthcare. So give us an insight on what can how does it connect, and maybe the third one, elections or governance so that government affairs help us understand the connection?
Jonathan Reichental
A lot, a lot of stuff there.
Ian Khan
We want to we want to squeeze everything that you’ve got in your in your brilliant mind, my friend?
Jonathan Reichental
Well, I’ll certainly try my best. Let’s start with the pandemic. Right. I think I think on health care. We’re early in this right. So you know, we really started to emerge in a big way globally in March. We’re now in early August. So it’s, you know, it’s a few months, but it’s still early, the the consequences, the implications are not well understood. And we’re certainly not in a place where we can see the the clear exit from this crisis. So as we speak today, you know, we’ll look back on this video, I want to be clear, there’s a lot we don’t know. There’s a lot, though, that is becoming more evidence around, you’re working from home phenomenon, many countries that was not adopted now is being used, right, that that’s a difference in it. The The, the evidence suggests that that’s here to stay. And not maybe to the extent it is for everybody right now. But clearly, working from home works. It’s better for the environment. It’s better for mental health. There’s advantages around some people want to go to the office. That’s cool, too. Things like delivery. You know, I think delivery is now off the charts. Yeah. You know, I’m a person who I always went to the store to get groceries and today I have been ordering more groceries to be delivered. I was forced to and then I realized they it’s actually pretty good. You know, don’t have to do it always. But if I’m in a bind to something, it’s quite nice to get everything delivered to your doorstep. You know, remote medicine, I think is going to explode. All types of distance healthcare is going to be become a reality. The fact is some of these things like, for example, virtual conferences, delivery and health care at a distance, they were underway, they were happening. And what we find with the with the pandemic now isn’t it is it is an acceleration, right. So there’ll be lots of consequences that emerge out of that. If you have more delivery, you could have a better infrastructure for cars to, you know, for trucks to be able to park curbside, and to double Park and things like that. One of the things we have to recognize about our cities is, you know, there are lots of, there are advantages, believe it or not, for people, we’re living in dense areas, I mean, for the most part, cities have actually been really successful. And for the most part, people love their cities. There’s a lot of challenges, a lot of really horrible issues that we still have to overcome, but people like living in these dense environments. And that density is not great when you when you when we think about things like health care, right? You know, everything from, you know, being exposed to violence to, you know, insufficient support for people with disabilities, to a contagion that, that goes from person to person. This is an interesting exercise. It’s a crisis, and it’s horrible, but we have to learn from this pandemic, what it means to how we design our cities in the future. That’s an open question. Now, a couple other questions. Yeah. What are we just briefly remind me the other two?
Ian Khan
No, that’s incredible. So that’s the connection off, of course, smart cities on on things such as a pandemic, and I’m wondering Johnson yet, in the future, as technologies converge, for example, you’ve got the Internet of Things, which is a sensor, you know, dependent technology, combines with the art with artificial intelligence, and other technologies, are we Is it even possible to have city that can prevent a pandemic? Can we detect the outbreak of disease in a certain area or certain areas? And somehow control it? What do you envision? That looks like?
Jonathan Reichental
Yeah, yeah, I appreciate that. Well look, with things like Internet of Things, which as you described, as is proliferation of sensors and an urban environment, or city IoT. We have a trade off, but we and we have a we have a societal debate about privacy versus, you know, the benefits. And trade, cultural, you know, depends what country we have this conversation, you know, that there’s countries that are much more liberal, or have a more of a kind of a top down governance in terms of their society, and others that are more democratic, more liberal, where people are pushing back and saying, No, we don’t want that type of surveillance, you know, and, and so this is we’re entering a period of probably a decade or so of debate about what we want to detect how we detect it, what information we collect. And, you know, we’re gonna have to carve that out as a people will do it, I think, probably country by country eventually. There’s, there’s no doubt. I mean, if you think about post 911, that horrific event that happened in New York, the terrorist attack, and other places, you know, afterwards, it was a scramble to be able to figure out how do we prevent that, and this this sort of military things we can do, but also, you know, how can we protect the weather, there’s explosive in a train station, or if there’s a chemical attack, and the chemicals are starting to, you know, disseminate across a wide urban platform. You know, we did put sensors up and some high risk communities have those sensors in place. So it’s, it’s not a stretch to imagine that we could begin to be able to monitor the spread of disease better. And frankly, we want that right now. You know, there’s been some interesting work being done to use cell phone locations to identify the spread of COVID-19. One of the limitations of course, in answering this question is, we don’t know what form the next pandemic will take. Right? And you know, just like COVID-19 is novel, it’s brand new. The next one will likely be novel two, and we might need a different set of tools. But I’ll say this, just in sort of conclusion on this big question, you know, more of us are washing our hands now more frequently and stores and airplanes and factories are cleaner. That’s always a good thing. That was always a good thing, you know? And so I hope that we continue the behavior of being more hygienic in our in how we go about our world and how we run our cities. things should be cleaner, and you know, Good clean environments are not the friend of bad, you know, viruses and bacteria. And so we could, you know, just by changing our behavior in cities and beyond, we could mitigate as well.
Ian Khan
Absolutely. I could see on different networks. You know, different people have logged in and they’re watching. On one of us on on LinkedIn, I have a really good friend of mine, who’s watching us. His name is Vivek Sharma. And he’s in Bangalore, India’s technology city, and I’m giving him a shout out right now. I know he’s in the transportation industry working on a product or technology for urban transportation, last mile transportation. Yes. What role does what is the future of transportation and electricity driven transport, play in smart cities or future cities, it’s an evolving area of a huge interest. Look at Tesla, an entirely electric car that’s blowing everybody’s mind because of the incredible success that it’s had. So help us understand that a little bit. The future of transportation.
Jonathan Reichental
Oh, it’s a it’s an amazing topic. And today, I would argue, transportation is probably one of the top four most important areas of smart cities. And if you’re wondering, the other three are, you know, sustainability, energy, and digitalization. So those are my top four. And that’ll change over time. But transportation, it’s a biggie, you know, let’s set the stage a little bit. First of all, cars have been incredible, but they’ve also been a bit of a disaster, right? They’ve been a disaster, because we’ve built our cities around cars and not around people. we’ve, we’ve created a lot of accidents, you know, it’s a horrible number we don’t talk about but about 1.4 million humans die in car accidents every year around the world, and, and millions more injured. Our cars for the last 100 years have been spewing out, you know, carbon exhaust into the environment. And that hasn’t been helping and, you know, again, transportation is the is about 30% of the climate crisis source. So, and then you got things like, you know, in an urban area, and in a dense sort of downtown area is 30% of the cars that are causing congestion or just cars, looking for a parking space, anywhere from 20 to 30%. And because we don’t have enough parking spaces, and we have horrible parking lots and our city landscape is, in some cities, 60% of an of a city is paved over just for cars. And that’s everything from roads to bridges to to parking lots. So it’s a really big deal. The good news is we see a lot of action in the space, we see everything from electrification of vehicles, and that’s happening quicker than we thought. Some countries have actual target dates. So you know, in Scandinavia, even even this decade, now they want to wind down on their their combustion engine cars. In Norway, for example, we just passed the point where the majority of new cars sold are electric. That’s a really huge milestone. Germany has, you know, 2035 proximately, UK 2040. India even has a target of 2045 for the last combustion engine cars to be sold. So this movement to electrification is a big one, you know, self driving cars, they’re coming, a V’s are coming. You know, there’s a lot of debate still, but I’m going to go on the record and say, within within a certain period of time, and I’m not ready to give a date. We will be transitioning rapidly to cars that drive themselves, we probably won’t own cars, you know, they’ll do they’ll be you know,
Ian Khan
and makes perfect sense. And without being too supportive of the technology of the movement of smart cities. I really believe that the the evolution of cities, being smart has a lot of different moving parts. And I really believe this is where entrepreneurship, startups can really focus on finding niche areas, finding applications where they can solve a problem, make things more efficient. help with making these cities smarter, or you know, for the lack of better word smart cities is amazing. But there’s much more to it than just a city being smart and intelligent. I think we are encouraging On an opportunity to, and this is, given the pandemic era that we’re living in. I know a lot of people are, are depressed, a business has been devastated and everybody’s trying to figure out a pivot. My recommendation to people out there is pivot to thinking about where we’re headed. We’re headed towards the era of smart cities, maybe in the next two 510 15 years, every city is automating things to a huge extent, go to your city, look at what’s being automated, what is the city planning to do 10 years from now or 15 years from now, and start investing your time, energy and effort in that direction, I think that could be an incredible opportunity for anybody to to to create a disruption proof opportunity to serve the world.
Jonathan Reichental
Now, you say that very, very well. And I’m 100%. Behind you. That’s exactly what I see. You know, as you think about the needs of cities going forward, they’re expensive. They you know, everything from health care, to education to buildings, transportation, digitalization, public safety, I mean, the list is extremely long. All those areas need reinvention. They need new technology. And they need new entrepreneurs. As you’ve quite rightly said, I’m a very active advocate, and actually an advisor in this space. And the opportunities are great, I would advise people to explore and and to support your comments. Look at it as a tremendous employment opportunity, and a business building opportunity.
Ian Khan
Yes. And I think one of the one of the many lessons that are coming out of this COVID-19 pandemic, is first of all, it’s it’s really big news, because it’s never happened in many, many generations. So we all are dealing with it. And we must learn from the disruption that it has caused. And think about, what can we create? That’s disruption proof. And that’s true entrepreneurship. So I’m, I am all for it. I love where this is going. We have a question. And I want to put that up. So lou is engaging. Incredibly, I love it. Lou says, Do you have any concerns about the extreme negative consequences of these technologies in the wrong hands, for example, China’s use of AI and so on and so forth. And I want to go back and also ask and talk about COVID-19 era, I do apologize, but we are living in that era. And it’s so relevant right now, of course, has also been a debate that apps that track you to figure out which areas have the pandemic and have you been affected? There’s many apps that have come out that governments are using to track people, we have to make a choice. Do you want to know if you’ve been affected? Worse is, hey, this encroaches on my privacy, help us understand what individuals should also think about when, you know, touching these technologies at a personal level. So first of all, let’s answer Lou’s question.
Jonathan Reichental
Yeah, so. So he asks about my concern about the negative consequences of technologies in the wrong hands. I mean, something we’ve learned as humans, anytime we build something or make something that has benefits, there’ll be some person or organization that will use it for for the wrong reasons. As as the technology gets more sophisticated, more global, the ability to cause harm grows, too. So yes, I have real concerns about that. We are dealing with these phenomena, the phenomena of new technologies, using old laws and regulations. So the rules have to catch up. We’re also involved in a significant global technology race. AI is at the forefront right now. You know, China wants to be dominant in this and and, and, and we’re working hard here in the US and Europe, they’re working hard. The countries or the country that dominates in AI, will have a significant advantage and could take, you know, extreme advantage of that in ways that would be not positive for for others. The other race that’s underway that we don’t call attention to is the race to quantum computing. Yeah, AI is awesome. But AI plus quantum that’s, that’s a new world that that’s a that’s a fourth industrial revolution, type, emergence. So no simple answers other than we have to be more conscious than ever before and have more rules. That makes sense, not not rules that, you know, limit innovation, because I’m against that, but let’s be aware that these new technologies are allowing all sorts of players to have new entry points. Getting into the privacy point. I am putting concern about privacy in smart cities and just cities in general. Because it’s not always the priority, right? It can come time sometimes come as an afterthought. So we’re embracing cities are embracing the sensors for things like counting traffic, which is, which is important. Things like air quality and noise detection. And the sensors are actually quite valuable. They’re going to help with autonomous vehicles and drones and other new technologies that start to come. But we’re so excited, and we’re so eager to deploy the technology, we’re sometimes lacking in the diligence we need around protecting people’s privacy. And that often comes later, but comes right. No cities need to be thinking about this right now. Like what are the pre emptive privacy policies and regulations that you need to put in place to be able to get all the advantages of this tech but but also protect people? The tracing the the COVID tracing? You know, hopefully this is temporary. I really do hope so. You know, we all have to ask ourselves, it’s feels a similar to maybe? Well, there’s a difference, of course, but but wearing masks is in the category of things we can do to help solve this crisis. If we do a few things, collectively, together, we can get beyond this crisis quicker. If we have holdouts, and people who just don’t agree with mask wearing or social distancing, we’re just attracting the problem. So that there is a there is a bit of energy behind, you know, let’s make sure these COVID apps are, are, are definitely protecting people in terms of their privacy, we got to do that. But let’s use things that help us get through this crisis quickly so we can get to the other side and get on with our lives.
Ian Khan
Thank you, Jonathan. Let’s go to the book. Yeah, we do. We do have a little bit of time. So I’ve gone through the book, I’ve browse to a lot of it. Read us something that you think pertains to the era right now, or a portion that’s, you know, that that is close to you, close to your heart?
Jonathan Reichental
Did you didn’t have a particular section in mind yourself?
Ian Khan
No, I like that this, the list of 10s that you have, here’s 10 things. Yeah, those are those are very nice and interest. Okay.
Jonathan Reichental
Let’s, let’s take a look at that. Just for the listeners and viewers. I’ll read a few of them out, and then I’ll choose one. So I’ve got two sections that are called the list of 10s are in fact, the dummy series calls it the, they call it the part of 10s. And you’ll find that in every dummies book, I got 10 Smart City, pitfalls to avoid. So these are things that cities should not do if they want to be successful. And the other one is how 10 waste cities will define our human future. And underneath that when I think I’ll do one there. So I’ve got things like most people will live, work and play their entire lives and cities. The increasing demands of sustainability will shape human behavior. Crime may be reduced significantly. I wish there was a voting system here that people could vote on what they’d like to hear. And let’s see. Let’s say the way people and goods move will continue to evolve. Let’s do that one. All right, that’s page 303. Let me go there. This is fun. This is my first virtual reading. Thank you for the opportunity. So I’ll try to it’s a relatively small. One of the most visible ways that cities are changing in front of your eyes is a number of new forms of transportation that are suddenly shuffling around people and goods. The roads and sidewalks of the urban world were ready replete with a variety of transportation modes, from motorized tucks to pulled rickshaws, from horses to rollerblades. And from convertibles to light rail. Humans have found a multitude of ways to get around. Culture, cost and geography in each city play a big role in shaping the options offered. It seems that we’re far from done. automobiles now dominating the city landscape are the cell are themselves in a period of change. increased interest in sustainability is literally driving the growth of electric powered vehicles. Still a niche, but rapidly expanding electric cars may dominate in the second half of the 21st century. Hydrogen as a fuel is also gaining interest and buyers. It’s gaining interested buyers, but it’s too early to know whether it will have long term traction, the emergence of self driving vehicles or turning the page I realize now this is a long section so maybe I won’t read it all I just read another paragraph or the are fully autonomous vehicles ABS Gathering speed. And all car manufacturers are betting on a vast a the future, it will be too narrow to consider a V’s only from the perspective of self driving, they have the potential to change everything from reduced congestion and accidents to insurance disruption and reinventing city design.
Ian Khan
Let me let me pause you for a second, I was going through the same set as myself, I really believe self driving cars, again, as you’ve written is such a tiny portion of of this entire transportation revolution that’s upon us. You’re looking at real trends as a transport and the transformation of that into electric powered or maglev powered or whatever powered, you’re looking at Hyperloop technologies that are coming in. Yeah, airlines industry is a very heavy fuel consuming industry. And that has to change as well. But how does? How do you use battery technology there and right, you’re flying and your battery finishes. And you’re like, Okay, I’ll see you later. Like, there’s many, many things that need to be figured out. And I’m just seeing all the opportunity in all these different areas. I want to give a shout out to the city of Dubai, and also to the UAE in general, in having a very progressive approach on urban transportation, I was lucky enough last year to work with the Regional Transportation Authority RTA on a workshop. And they are doing projections on the future of transportation by the year 2017 2017. And that is the centennial year for the UAE is 100 years, the formation of the UAE progressive governments are already looking at the next 50 to 100 years of where they will be right. So we’re not let’s My point is let’s stop looking at at what has happened. And look forward getting engaged with your city leaders get engaged in your industry, with thought leaders thinkers, there is just so much opportunity that you you’ve got tons of work to do entrepreneurs, and the sky’s the limit?
Jonathan Reichental
Yeah, I go even further. I do I write a lot about urban innovation and entrepreneurs and opportunity. But I also have a whole section on how anybody can get involved, right. So you know, if you’re a teenager and you’re fed up, you want to kind of help change your city. If you’re a, you know, an older person who’s retired and maybe wants to contribute, I actually discussed a lot of the ways that you can help meaningful ways and actual doable ways that you can help your city evolve and be better. So so that guidance is in there.
Ian Khan
Yes, we I want to put a question up as well. And thanks to all our attendees and viewers who, you know, make these things possible, nor says Norris join, she says, Hey, guys, good day, and this book is great in Smart Cities are absolutely awesome, self sufficient, and so on. But do you think this will be achieved soon? Like, when will the Smart Cities happen? I know you have a great answer for this. Jonathan.
Jonathan Reichental
You know, the couple of thoughts come to me when I when I think about this question. It’s a good it’s an important question. The first of all, can you imagine a day in which a city would be finished? Right? The notion that you build a city and you’re like, I’m done, we’re done. That doesn’t really exist, right? So cities are in a constant state of evolution. So I have a little bit of difficulty sort of thinking about, like, an endpoint to, to a smart city, right? I want to I think it’s a constant evolution. So you know, a wave of new innovation, like IoT, and autonomous vehicles and drones and, you know, sent different ways to ensure that, you know, we’ve no leaks and our water systems, those will happen. And then probably within a decade or two, another wave of new technology, maybe powered by quantum and, and the touchless economy will emerge. So there isn’t really sort of a an achievement date, right there there is this idea of, you know, ensuring that we we are able to address current concerns and also invest in the future. The important thing, and I think maybe this is what you were alluding to, when you said I had the right answer, or I had an answer for it, is that smart city missions and visions are specific to each city. Right. And that’s an important point. You and that’s why it’s difficult, by the way to have standards and even a benchmark because what’s important to Bangalore in terms of what their needs are to increase the quality of life. The needs of Bangalore might be very different from Dubai, which might be very different from Moscow in Russia, or Melbourne in Australia, right? So what are those those sort of the goal of reaching or trying to achieve smart city? smart and sustainable objectives is going to be very dependent. Yeah, so so maybe you know, for the question, it’s a great question. It’s let’s pick, let’s pick a city, right, like so if you’re, if you’re talking about, you know, Delhi, when will Delhi Be smart? Well, let’s first define what that means. Let’s, let’s look at the journey. And so it really depends on the city, it depends we’re trying to achieve, and ultimately, it will be ongoing.
Ian Khan
We’re also it’s also very important. And this is going back to the session we had a couple of months ago, Jonathan on smart cities, and we had other participants in that live stream. You know, city of Amsterdam, was was one of the participants. And we heard, you know, the Smart City index, we had somebody from, from that index, who talked about how much you know where that index is, and how smart are some of the cities. So I it’s a process, and those are some really incredible resources to look back at. And viewers today can go back to our my live stream history and look at look at the one on smart cities and try and understand that it’s much more complex than just reaching a goal. As you said, Jonathan, but but reaching a state a consensus on certain things and then continuing to build, I want to ask you about buying How important is it for cities to have a vision and to the buy in from different parties involved? Do you talk about that book a
Jonathan Reichental
little? I do I do. Now, you have to remember, I’m a practitioner, I did this, right. Yeah, I did this for a living. So I’m not coming from a place of theory, or just, you know, went to a library and sort of research this. I actually did this work. And I’m not only going to do do with city and Palo Alto, and Silicon Valley, but I helped cities all over the world. So I saw common challenges. I saw what worked well, what didn’t work well. And yes, I The goal was to put this in a book so that everybody could benefit from the experiences of cities around the world. Probably at the top of the list of that journey, when the city decides, you know what we need to begin to apply new technologies, we need to reinvent how we’re doing things when they start that mission. And that that really is the journey to a smarter and more sustainable community. It really begins with leadership. And I talk a lot about this, who is the who are the leaders who will champion this, the apps, by the way, the absence of leadership is is the beginning of the recipe for failure. Right? If you don’t have one, at least, or you should have multiple champions who are in a leadership position in your city, there’s a good chance it’ll add, at best it’ll, it’ll bump along, at worst, it’ll fail. So it starts with leadership. And then you have to have engagement, you have to have community engagement. So that that question of buying, Oh, it’s so huge. So and I learned this, with the things we did badly, and I learned it with the things we did well, you need to get old voices, as best you can at the table. And the good news is now with a you know, now that we’re collaborating online, and we were beginning to do that, anyway, you can bring in lots of different voices, you know, from not only from your city, but even outside stakeholders and academics and and, you know, smart people who’ve done this before. You should have a groups of people, committees and groups of stakeholders who meet regularly and help to steer the project, the Smart City effort, smart city vision. So I can’t it’s hard for me to think of, you know, something else in the top three that would you know, beyond making sure that a buy in is fully addressed early on.
Ian Khan
If there were city Johnson that you would ask and we’re heading towards the end of our time here. I would love to talk continue talking to you. But but I think you have other things scheduled. And we can do this again, in Bali, as well as a part two in a series. If there were a city that you can help our viewers understand, to follow to look at to study, what would be some of the top cities that are your favorites when it comes to on city development?
Jonathan Reichental
You know, it takes many forms. And I have an appendix in the book that lists a lot of cities around the world on every continent. I think except for Antarctica, that, you know, personify Good work. And, you know, it gives good examples. You know, so you might think, for example, that I’m going to talk about a city that’s really tech centric. Well look at, for example, some of the work being done in Mexico City, to convert highways into parks, that’s pretty smart people need more green, we need more trees, or what we call urban forests. You know, that’s good just for the air and for also, by the way for reducing heat. But people like to go with their families to these green areas, and city cities with big green spaces and parks, are healthier cities. So you know, Mexico City has a plan and they’re moving on the way to pedestrian eyes and, and put parks into where there were big arteries, big transportation arteries. To me, I like that, look, look at what they’re doing. Mexico City very, very smart. You know, you can look at, for example, Rio, and where you have poorer people living in the favelas in the hills. And one of the reasons why they continue to be in poverty is they can’t reach areas of employment, because it’s too far away. So they’ve been putting in place these gondolas to allow people to quickly get from the favelas, to areas of employment. That’s smart. I think that’s really cool.
Ian Khan
Jonathan, sorry, one of the things that I want to also reinforce is that a smart city is not necessarily the, you know, the over installation of technology in a city, it’s definitely connected to it. But one of the things that comes to my mind, you know, going back to my favorite city of Dubai, is things such as the Emirates government service excellence program that you and I are both kind of we touch upon, and the fact that governance has to have a strategy and a philosophy of being the number one you’ve got to, and then technology can play a part in, in executing that vision. My question to you is, what’s your comment? And we’re finishing soon? What’s your comment on technology, non technology, non technology and creating a smart city?
Jonathan Reichental
Well, to be brief, a couple of things, first of all, and engage community. So you know, I make this point, and a lot of my teaching a lot of my writings is the future is not a spectator sport. You know, the, the future is about participation. And people have now the ability to be engaged in the community. So smarter communities are those where people are active. People are embracing their democracy. They’re, they’re contributing to ideas and contributing to debates, and you see that in communities all around the world. That’s, that’s a big one. governance, I’m glad you brought that up again, cuz I realized you asked me that earlier. And I didn’t answer it. good governance, you know, the United Nations writes about this a lot about the value of good governance that that enables a more peaceful, less violent, more Kinder community when you have structures in place with enforcement, and with people who respect the processes. So you know, you we need to have cities that are engaging for people and people who are prepared to step up and be active.
Ian Khan
Incredible, Jonathan, hey, I can’t thank you enough time has flown by the last hour has just gone by. and Andre says put in a comment there. It’s up on the screen about mobile. But there’s a revolution happening everywhere. And your book, I believe, is has happened at the right time. In the right era, we all need to read this book cover to cover multiple times, make notes, and share that knowledge with people in our community at our work in our department in our group. Because I think collectively, if we all are on the same page, we can understand the vision that we are chasing or our cities chasing or communities chasing. It just helps create better business do things in a different way. Jonathan, I cannot thank you enough for being part of the future readiness live stream that we’ve had today about smart cities. Congratulations again, on one incredible book and working with Wiley and coming out with this. We are we’re looking forward to get looking at more books from you, by the way, so finished yet. Help us help our viewers with your online courses where they are available. I know you’re doing a ton of them and they’re all going what topics are they on? Where can I find them And where can we find you?
Jonathan Reichental
Okay, thanks. Thank you for that. No, again, the and thank you so much for doing this. And for giving me the platform, particularly in Canada, to share my insights and thoughts. I wrote this book, to be a tool to be an educational platform. That was my driver. And so I’m so thrilled that it’s a bestseller and people are embracing it. In Canada, you can find it on you know, Amazon’s Canada site. But you can also find it in your popular or, you know, local store as well, it’s it should be in bookstores all over Canada as well. If you would like a signed copy for me, I have, I can do that I can arrange that directly. So just reach out to me, and I’m happy to sign a copy and send it to you. The way you can do that I’m very active on Twitter. As you can see, with my Twitter handle there on LinkedIn, you can get me on LinkedIn. And you can also see my writing intel.com website where you can get get in touch with me as well. I do a lot of online training. That’s true, particularly with LinkedIn learning. So if you have a LinkedIn account with premium access, or you have a LinkedIn learning account, you can see my courses on there everything from one of your favorites in blockchain, to quantum data governance and of course, smart cities. I just completed and released a new course on x as a service. Everything as a service is the future of business. And that’s doing really well too. So that’s a few ways I write for Forbes, you can see my articles and Forbes media as well. And well, thank you again, thank you for this platform, and it’s really great to be here.
Ian Khan
It’s been my pleasure Johnson and your website is reichental.com Is that correct?
Jonathan Reichental
That’s right. That’s just my last name dot com,
Ian Khan
rockin tall, calm, folks. Please buy a copy of smart cities for dummies and send Jonathan emails and congratulating him on an incredible job that he’s done. Thank you, everybody for joining us online on this live stream. A recorded version will be available forever to be watched on YouTube and other platforms for now saying goodbye to all the viewers and Jonathan you hang in there. Saying goodbye to all the viewers. This is Ian Khan. Check me out on Ian khan.com and the work I do. And thank you so much Johnson and we wish you all the best. Thank you
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
