QUESTION ONE $[30]$

Africa is ready to leapfrog the competition Through Smart Cities Technology

All cities are unique from their geographic layout to their architecture. They do however have

common objectives such as the safety and security of their citizenry and the provision of

services in the form of utilities and transportation networks. They also face common

challenges while attempting to remain competitive in securing sufficient resources to

maintain and grow the city. African cities have challenges stemming from years of hostilities

and neglect of infrastructure. Rapid urban migration of the population is placing demands on

existing infrastructure and transportation networks which are beyond their original design.

Over the past decade large multinational Information Technology $($IT$)$ companies have

begun predicting Africa to be $$the next big market$$ due to the emergence of many rapidly

growing economies. As such it is a fair statement to make that many African cities are at the

crossroad of velociously development in one shape or another, providing the unique

opportunity for cities to innovate and lead a new generation of thinking whilst demonstrating

tangible benefits to their citizens and to the world.

When compared to mature cities like London and New York, African cities can currently be

behind the $$competitive$$ curve. However, this is not a pre$-$destined outcome as African cities

can, through the successful adoption of the ideology and technology underpinning the Smart

Cities concept, become globally competitive. It is through the adoption of advanced

technologies and lessons learned from mature cities that the anticipated growth need not be

one step at a time, but rather exponentially in functional, economic and social aspects.

There has been a lot of media attention around the concept of a Smart City. Broadly

speaking, a city can be defined as $$smart$$ when investments in human and social capital and

traditional $($transport$)$ and modern $($ICT$)$ communication infrastructure fuel sustainable

economic development and a high quality of life, with a wise management of natural

resources. Stated differently, the goal of a Smart City is transformational: to achieve

enhanced quality of life for citizens and deliver tangible benefits at national, provincial, and

municipal levels while leveraging our natural resources judiciously. These visions need to be

translated into clear and tangible strategies.

African advantages

Taking the previous Smart City themes into consideration, we can now consider why African

cities are advantageously positioned to start adopting Smart City technologies thus gaining a

competitive edge into the mid twenty first century.

$1.$ Limited legacy drawbacks

African cities$$ advantage for technological adoption far surpasses their Eastern and Western

counterparts as many of the cities don$$t suffer from crippling costs associated with the

maintenance of legacy infrastructure and systems. Cities can start with the latest technology

available thereby. Immediately thrusting them as competitors into the global marketplace.

Countries like Ethiopia, Libya and South Sudan don$$t have substantial telecommunication

cable installations and thus, wouldn$$t need to consider the upgrade path from analogue to

ADSL, they can immediately look to move forward with a pure implementation of the latest

$5$G$/$ LTE network. Additionally, they wouldn$$t have to worry about the cost and resource

provisioning surrounding patching and upgrading of sections of existing but outdated

network components. Naturally, this network facility will immediately impact local businesses

that hadn$$t invested in costly IT infrastructures and datacentres that

would otherwise now be running on potentially outdated servers. It is through the provision of

advanced networking facilities that businesses can almost immediately port their services

through provisioned cloud infrastructure, reaching a global audience with very little overhead

to consider, and thereby start positioning themselves as powerful competitors in geographies

never previously considered.

$2.$ Youthful consumer population

One could argue that the biggest driver launching the African continent into the twenty first

century is the rise of the African middle class. Africans are also aspirational, with African

consumers wanting the same things as other consumers across the world: choice of food

and housing; entertainment and interconnectivity; and access to the latest fashion trends.

According to the African Development Bank Chief Economist Mthuli Ncube $$it$$s the middle

class that drive demand in an economy,$$ as it is the middle class who have the greatest

disposable income$\mathrm{.}2$ This, coupled with the fact that Africa has a disproportionately young

population

with $62\%$ of the population under $25$ years of age, makes for an interesting consideration as

to the quantum of tomorrow$$s consumer market. With the European Union predicti