Por Andrés Segovia | @ReporteroAndres | andrulenon@hotmail.com

“The next step after smart cities is the creation of digital or smart nations” sugieren los autores de la investigación Moving beyond Smart Cities: Digital Nations for Social Innovation & Sustainability  (2019) basados en una serie de investigaciones sobre las experiencias en E-goverment adelantadas en diferentes partes del mundo como Bangladesh, India, China, Estados Unidos, entre otras.Identificaron y resumieron algunas nociones generales para la superación del insipiente concepto de Smart cities hasta llevarlo a dimensiones nacionales.

“Existing city-scale theories and frameworks may be used and adapted to meet the larger-scale needs of the future smart nations. The new issues and research challenges which arise need to be addressed through interdisciplinary approaches” (Gupta, 2019, p.1). Pero ¿cómo pueden ser definidas?

“…as a country in which urban and rural citizens, governments, and businesses live in a digital society that interacts and generates value, which benefits all stakeholders. The concept of digital nations is broader and more encompassing than smart cities, as it covers an entire country.” (Gupta, 2019, p.1).

Consiste en una densa red de Smart cities que logren cinco metas: “the development of its residents’ digital, social, economic, professional and personal needs with significant spillover effects beyond the urban and semi-urban areas” (Gupta, 2019, p.2). No en vano se habla de integrar en absoluto, la era digital no debe ser una era urbana, podríamos pensarla como la oportunidad de retomar el campo con nuevo paradigma modernizador.

“The rural areas are an important node in such a network; they complement the economy by not only servicing the needs of the urban population but also creating economic value through grassroot innovations and economic activities for all citizens, including those living in rural areas. Equitable access to information, and economic, social and commercial resources, need to be provided” (Gupta, 2019, p. 3).

Trabajos consultados como ‘Identifying and Prioritizing Barriers to the Development of Smart Cities in Indian Context’, de Rana et al. Exponen las múltiples áreas que deben afrontarse para la planificación en estas:

As the concept of digital nations is relatively new, previous research has largely been inadequate. Some of the common characteristics of these studies include:

•       viewing smart city initiatives as part of national level priorities;
•       developing internet and telecommunications infrastructure to connect every citizen to the web;
•     employing new technologies in all possible areas of service delivery, especially digital service delivery;
•      with extensive usage of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for improving the lives of citizens;
•       with a focus on societal goals, like realising sustainability, better waste management and reducing pollution;
•     utilising interdisciplinary approaches to study organisations and society to achieve national objectives (Gupta, 2019, p.3).

Se necesita infraestructura, pero también “smart citizens”, en parte porque la aspiración no puede ser la orwelliana vigilancia perpetua:

“This action might actually make people less smart and less responsible as they become monitored. As such, a view is needed which takes into account a realistic view of technology embodied in a societal context, in which both influence each other. Instead, a digital and smart nation should take the societal needs as a starting point and the larger governance system responds to these needs (Gupta, 2019, p. 1-2).

Integración de esferas antes separadas es la clave. Las necesidades son sumamente amplias, mientras más crecen las poblaciones, más relevante es la interacción entre la sociedad, mercado y digitalización con la sostenibilidad; algo que las plataformas ya pueden enlazar con sus tecnologías.

This has to be enabled through the use of emerging paradigms of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) like the Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and data-driven services (Chatterjee et al. 2018b) (Gupta, 2019, p. 2).

Es evidente la necesidad de la conformación de políticas nacionales o marcos referenciales, de lo contrario por mera inercia las regiones y municipalidades desarrollarán marcos propios no integrados “As a result, the systems are incompatible resulting in data islands that cannot be integrated across these cities” (Gupta, 2019, p. 2). Esto hasta es evidente en gobiernos nacionales cuyas dependencias no se integran con otras, allí se puede observar el bajo grado de interés o corta visión respecto a la tecnología, casos hay y es necesario recordarlos, como Estonia, un país que al salir de la órbita socialista se enfocó en comunicaciones, pero digitales, ante todo. Un enfoque en grande clave del desarrollo. 

Gupta, M.; Ilavarasan, V.; Janssen, M.; Kar, Kumar y Kthari, R. (2019) Moving beyond Smart Cities: Digital Nations for Social Innovation & Sustainability. Information Systems Frontiers https://doi.org/10.1007/s10796-019-09930-0