OECD Roundtable on Smart Cities and Inclusive Growth

By leveraging digital technologies and data, smart cities provide an opportunity to boost citizen well-being and deliver more efficient, sustainable, and inclusive urban environments. Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies may be a game changer in modernising urban development by supporting decision-making, facilitating efficiency gains, promoting citizens’ engagement, and improving environmental sustainability through data analysis.  That is why digital technologies and AI are at the heart of many national, regional and local policies and strategies to mobilise public and private investments and research. However, technology as such does not make a city ‘smart’, but rather how technology is used as part of a broader urban development policy. High expectations have been placed on digital technologies and AI to foster well-being, improve quality of life, or promote social inclusion in cities. However, their application in urban development is fraught with risks such as data privacy and job destruction that could jeopardise socio-economic and territorial cohesion. 

In the face of expected advantages and potential risks of deploying digital technologies and AI in cities, the OECD Roundtable on Smart Cities and Inclusive Growth is a platform to share experience, ideas, and best practices to use digital technology and AI to tackle urban development challenges towards sustainability, equality, and well-being. By facilitating dialogue, the Roundtable sets the basis for further co-operation through the adoption of policy guidelines, recommendations, capacity building events, and even peer-to-peer learning.

To build a community of practice to facilitate peer-to peer dialogue on common challenges and innovative initiatives on smart cities for inclusive growth  

The Roundtable brings together key stakeholders from cities, regions, national governments, the private sector, civil society, academia, philanthropy and international organisations to:

• Learn from a common understanding of the concept of smart cities across the globe and raise awareness on the policy implications for inclusive growth;
• Share policies, practices and knowledge on how to get smart city initiatives right, and shape the way to upscale success stories and minimise risks;
• Advance the data measurement agenda to co-produce an analytical and indicator framework to assess the smart cities’ performance and their contribution to inclusive growth;
• Understand opportunities and challenges related to the disruptions of digital innovation on city governance, data ownership and disclosure, private sector participation, and citizen engagement;
• Raise awareness of the potential of digital technologies (e.g. artificial intelligence [AI], Internet of Things [IoT], Big Data), and supporting digital infrastructure and devices (e.g. wireless broadband networks, smartphones and cloud computing) to foster innovation and deliver public services more efficiently and effectively.