Building the Future: Navigating the Evolution and Collaboration in Smart Cities

Security Tech Talk

What if the cities of tomorrow could offer more than just a promise of technological advancement, but a tangible improvement in the quality of urban life? Steve welcomes Andrea Sorri to share insights on how smart cities are evolving, with lessons drawn from the established frameworks of European metropolises and new opportunities in the Middle East. They discuss the dynamic interplay between traditional infrastructure and cutting-edge innovation, and how each city, regardless of its stage of maturity, can harness technology to enhance urban mobility, safety, and citizen engagement. Learn how cities are integrating existing resources, such as video surveillance systems, for dual-use purposes, maximizing their potential for public safety and environmental monitoring.

Amidst the promise of smart cities, challenges such as scaling designs and ensuring cybersecurity are ever-present. Andrea highlights the importance of leveraging local resources and fostering innovation through City Labs and technology enablers in rapidly developing regions. Hear about the groundbreaking technologies being installed in places like Saudi Arabia, and why no single city can be hailed as the perfect model.

About our guest:

With over 25 years of experience, Andrea Sorri is Segment Development Manager Smart Cities EMEA at Axis Communications. Andrea Sorri helps put Smart City solutions into practice at Axis Communications, where he is responsible for key markets. He has globally created and implemented efficient strategies for cities and critical infrastructure. His daily commitments include introducing technology that brings effective benefits to communities, particularly in the public safety, mobility and environmental monitoring areas, with a strong focus on enabling cities to reach their sustainable development goals (SDGs).

Connect with Andrea on LinkedIn

Chapters:

(00:05) Evolution and Challenges of Smart Cities: Smart cities vary in maturity and face challenges in upgrading infrastructure, but offer benefits like improved mobility and safety through citizen engagement and alignment with SDGs.

(10:09) Fostering Collaboration in Smart Cities: Trust, transparency, and ethical AI are crucial in smart cities, with collaboration, dual-purpose infrastructure, and ecosystem-driven approaches being key.

(18:23) Overcoming Challenges for Smart Cities: Smart city scaling in the Middle East faces challenges like cybersecurity, but can benefit from local resources and city labs.

(27:28) Rethinking Smart City Innovation: Smart cities require pragmatic, adoptable, and replicable technology, with potential for collaboration between technology companies and government entities.

Resources:

See more about the Smart City Expo World Congress

Read about the European Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act

Read Andrea’s blog post about using people counting tech to improve transport in cities

See how Axis is shaping smarter, safer and more sustainable cities

Read our “Secure Insights: Cities” blog

Meet your host Steve Kenny: Steve has spent 14 years in the security sector undertaking various roles that have seen him take responsibility for key elements of mission critical, high profile projects across a number of different vertical markets. For the last several years, Steve has focused his attention on how technologies can best complement day to day operations and specifically address operational issues by supporting the A&E consultant community across Northern Europe. Steve is a committee member for ASIS International focusing on Education for the security sector and the UK technology advisor for TINYg (Terrorist Information New York group).

Connect with Steve on LinkedIn

More about Axis Communications: Axis enables a smarter and safer world by creating solutions for improving security and business performance. As a network technology company and industry leader, Axis offers solutions in video surveillance, access control, intercom, and audio systems. They are enhanced by intelligent analytics applications and supported by high-quality training. Axis has around 4,000 dedicated employees in over 50 countries and collaborates with technology and system integration partners worldwide to deliver customer solutions. Axis was founded in 1984, and the headquarters are in Lund, Sweden.

Find out more about Axis Communications - Innovating for a smarter, safer world. https://www.axis.com/