Just Ask Dave:

Properly and efficiently delivering public services to your constituency can be as important as keeping someone like poor Dave out of the metaphorical doghouse. Or when you consider something such as serving your senior citizens, easy, cost-effective access to services can be absolutely life saving.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtrioY8MGfI

People today expect more transparent, accessible, and responsive services from their public sector officials. Likewise, the technology landscape continues to change, reflecting both emerging approaches and innovative solutions for delivering more effective public services, and also the faster paced, more complex environment faced by community leaders. These topics share a common theme -constituent and resident expectations continue to rise, and leaders must be prepared to adapt to changing circumstances and to deliver value to those that they protect and serve.

Success Stories:

Communities around the world have been approaching a variety of innovative technologies and smart city techniques in search of successful transformation outcomes in the public service realm. Kansas City in the United States, for instance, considers connectivity a utility to improve livability, efficiency and economic vitality for its residents and visitors for now and for generations to come. Hoping for recognition as one of the most futuristic cities in America, Kansas City is only in its first phase in which it offers secure public Wi-Fi, digital kiosks and smart streetlights that dim with the absence of foot traffic. Additionally, the city recently unveiled its smart streetcar, making urban transit a more enjoyable experience for day-to-day commuters and visitors alike. Oh, and it's free to ride! Quite handy, right?

Similarly the city of Mississauga is taking advantage of rapid connectivity to support the adoption of new and innovative technologies to support their smart city vision. Advancements in areas like the Internet of Things (IoT) enables Mississauga to collect data from sensors, cameras and various other points throughout the city to be used toward improving, accelerating and securing service delivery to its nearly 800,000 residents.

And more recently, Jaipur, Rajasthan in India was announced as Cisco's first lighthouse city in South Asia. Efforts led by the Jaipur Development Authority are focused on creating digital infrastructure to offer residents a variety of public service amenities, preparing to become a smarter, safer city of the future.

#TransformationThursday Series:

We'd like to invite you to join us here each week for a new#TransformationThursday blog, where we will discuss digital transformation in cities, detailing storylines and examples with various social, environmental and economic outcomes. We hope that you'll join us as we take a candid look at digitization, capturing best practices and solutions to common challenges while preserving an approach that addresses each community's specific wants and needs.

Stay tuned for next week's post to discuss more around community health and wellness.

We'd also love for you to be a part of the conversation by using the hashtag#TransformationThursday and by following @CiscoGovt on Twitter.

And for more information and additional examples, visit our smart cities page Cisco.com.