Monetizing Smart Cities: Framing the Debate

A debate is developing in Canada about who will control and profit from the massive volume of data generated by smart cities in the future. The stakes are high for two reasons: this data holds large financial value and it will have a huge impact on citizen life in cities.

Key findings emerges from this article such as:

• The question of control and profit from smart city data.
• The value of this data has increased immensely, both financially and how it impacts citizen life, making it a critical modern resource, enriched by deep learning and artificial intelligence.
• Citizen and infrastructure data collected by connected and open systems has the potential to improve every aspect of civic life, provided cities effectively manage this valuable modern resource and not forfeit control to private interests.
• To protect this resource, Canada needs to develop a national strategy, based on open technology architecture, to adopt policies that secure data ownership for cities.

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