Hutchison Management

Canada has grown in population as a nation though immigrants and their progeny. The immigrants were seeking a better life in Canada and immigration is a growth process that continues.

Very sadly, the early immigrants and their offspring developed the idea that their better lives required a conversion of Indigenous lives through many sordid processes including residential schools. “The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation provides an excellent opportunity for all Canadians to learn and reflect on the issues and how we must never allow this to happen ever again”, said Murray Sinclair, former chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Twenty-seven years of creating “Smart” and “Intelligent” communities, cities and regions in Canada has demonstrated that real long-lasting and better lives for all Canadians can be achieved through effective understanding and collaboration between citizens within our communities and between our communities throughout Canada. It may be exciting to focus on new technologies in our Digital Revolution but Canada will only be “great” when we become world leaders in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion while also creating world class technologies and applications. We can become a world model for “better lives” if we all understand our history and participate in effective collaboration.

In Canada we have a some very innovative community and housing developers creating new greenfield communities. We also still have a significant number of builders who resist risk and new ideas. They can still continue building more traditional homes and make acceptable profits, particularly in rapidly expanding cities. The public drives the market and their demand for innovation will grow as they learn more about the benefits of some of the new features described in this recent piece from government technology magazine. Here’s an excerpt:

Photo credit: Brookfield Residential via government technology

Robot carts and drone deliveries are just some of the baubles planned development communities are dangling as the sort of high-tech amenities residents are not only welcoming, but expecting.

“Amenities isn’t just what we think of traditionally, in the vein of swimming pools, parks and playgrounds. It also includes technology,” said Caitlyn Lai-Valenti, residential senior director of sales and marketing at Brookfield Residential. “It includes retail, and the walkability component for our residents as well.”

Read the entire article here.

As the Government of Canada’s Employment and Social Development web site wisely defines it in their Seniors Forum report:

“Aging in place means having the health and social supports and services you need to live safely and independently in your home or your community for as long as you wish and are able.”

The University Health Network takes up this concern – so heightened during the COVID-19 pandemic – in their recent article “Growing old at home: how tech is helping people ‘age in place’”. Here is an excerpt:

“Ron was able to make at-home caregiving [for his father, diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease] manageable, in part, because he put his computer science background to work. He implemented various technologies, from low-tech physical aids like poles and handgrips to keep his dad from falling, to higher-tech video cameras and GPS trackers that allowed him to keep an eye on his dad while he was away.

If other people had access to the same kind of technology that he did, then more seniors would likely stay at home after becoming ill, he believes. It’s an issue that’s become even more urgent in the face of COVID-19 as families do their best to keep loved ones away from viral spread in long-term care facilities, while simultaneously trying to have as little face-to-face contact as possible.”

The UHN article goes on to note that Ron went on to become an advisor to AGE-WELL, a technology and aging network that supports the development of technologies and services to help people age gracefully at home. Federally funded through the Networks of Centres of Excellence, working with researchers from across the country, AGE-WELL’s host institution is UHN, and its physical home is at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute. Researchers at KITE, the research arm of Toronto Rehab and a frequent collaborator with AGE-WELL, have long understood that remaining at home provides a better aging experience than a nursing home.

Dr. Geoff Fernie overlooks HomeLab, KITE’s “home within a lab,” where researchers test age-in-place technology. (Photo credit: The KITE Research Institute at UHN​)

In my opinion, aging in place must most urgently be considered a highlight application, with important new social benefits being introduced during this current stage of the Digital Revolution. New technology developments will apply to smart homes, along with and feeding into connected communities and neighbourhoods. Health service organizations will connect directly to many of these initiatives.

Read more of the UHN article on aging in place technology endeavours here.

The post COVID-19 evolution of Smart Cities will feature the addition of new dimensions, opportunities and priorities. Urban planners are already creating new physical models like the One Minute City in Sweden, the Fifteen Minute City in Paris, Nature Towns in Texas and the Superblock Community in Barcelona where nine-block areas at a time are being considered for new neighbourhood designs.

Meanwhile, social activists, city governments and real estate executives are exploring the possibilities of using excess business spaces for affordable housing while the Global Smart City business has become a trillion-dollar business, predicted to reach $3 trillion by 2025.

These new physical and social dimensions are all happening at a time of important technology transformation. Our broadband communications infrastructures continue to evolve with 5G communications in its early rollout stages while networks of Low Earth Orbiting Satellites are on the way. At the same time, autonomous transit shuttles, drone deliveries and many other new technologies and sensors are being introduced daily to support hundreds of new applications dealing with safety, security, enhanced productivity, sustainability and municipal operations.

Some cities and regions are creating new land sites just for testing new technologies and new systems, a strategy which often attracts new technology companies too. For example, the City of Ottawa, through Invest Ottawa has dedicated a very large piece of land for testing autonomous transit shuttles and other purposes. Ottawa will ultimately become a major centre for the evolution of autonomous vehicles.

Photo credit: Invest Ottawa, via Ottawa Business Journal

COVID-19 has highlighted the broadband deficits in Canada and other countries, particularly in rural regions and low-income areas in cities. Fortunately, some new digital technologies are now available to quickly facilitate up to one gigabit of bandwidth on twisted pairs of copper wire or on coax cable. Fibre is not required for this important and low-cost bandwidth boost where older buildings do not have to be rewired, or fibered to receive higher bandwidths. Stay tuned!

Although the new ideas mentioned above are all very exciting, the creation of award-winning Smart Cities and Intelligent Communities will continue to feature proven processes and the identification of critical success factors. Effective municipal management and relevant Smart City governance will continue to be critical success factors for ensuring effective transformations with significant benefits from these new opportunities.

It was a privilege to be retained by LG Canada to participate in the announcement of their new LG V60 ThinQ 5G mobile phone. My role was to discuss the significant benefits of 5G as applied to Smart City transformations.

In summary, the arrival of 5G creates amazing new opportunities for Smart City transformation. Broadband speeds are up to 200 times faster than today’s 4G and typical latency delays can be reduced by a factor of 2,000. As a result, autonomous traffic and vehicle signaling become practical with 5G, as do remote surgeries and hundreds of other new opportunities. I’ll be going into more details on this in subsequent posts, here and on my LinkedIn page.

The V60 ThinQ 5G phone has impressive digital and analog audio capabilities along with a unique headphone jack. Its dual screens come in a case and work as one large screen or two separate screens. Video displays include LG’s impressive OLED technology. The phone will output or record 8K footage and the cameras take 8K videos now, even though public networks are still at 4K. Many other interesting features are described by LG in stores, on the web, and in their marketing materials.

The LG V60 ThinQ 5G Phone

Learn more here about the LG V60 ThinQ 5G Phone.

After initially posting this on my LinkedIn page, friends and colleagues posted kind and creative feedback on my comments about the importance of 5G for the evolution of new Smart Future City applications. As we move through this decade, 6G will evolve. Hence the importance of future-proofing new 5G applications! For the past 25 years we have been helping our clients to future proof their Smart City designs while they prepared for the future.

Take a look at the comments and add your own to the discussion here.

On Tuesday, December 3, 2019, for the fourth year in a row, I was pleased to moderate a panel of Canadian construction and development companies as they described their products, services and experiences to trade officials and business executives from Russia and Eurasian countries.

The organizer of this event was the Canada Eurasia Russia Business Association (CERBA). CERBA has a long history of supporting Canada’s growing bilateral trade and collaboration with Eurasian and Russian organizations, although Russian business has slowed recently. Great opportunities are burgeoning in other Eurasian countries and there is a growing interest in “urban digital transformation” aka #smartcities, #intelligentcommunities, #resilientcities, #sustainablecities and #digitaletransformation.

Imagine allowing our kids the freedom to play and move around outdoors the way we did years ago …

Marianne Lefever describes the developments and opportunities from using 5G communications and community design to “bring back our kids’ past freedoms”. Research has shown the long term physical and mental health benefits from increased outdoor exercise and exploration at a young age. Take a look at Lefever’s article “What if 5G could boost children’s development?” here.