“Smart Cities” Conference

A first of its kind interdisciplinary index for smart and sustainable cities was presented at IDC's “Smart Cities” Conference

On November 21st, 2018, senior officials from various local authorities, such as the mayors of Tel Aviv, Herzliya and Hod Hasharon – Ron Huldai, Moshe Fadlon and Amir Kochavi – as well as the General Manager of the Eilat Municipality, Philip Azrad, the General Manager of the Kfar Saba Municipality, Itay Tsachar, and Adv. Eitan Atia, CEO of Forum 15 (The Israeli Forum of Self-Government Cities), participated in the "Smart Cities" conference at IDC Herzliya, convened by the Gazit-Globe Real Estate Institute, the Zvi Meitar Institute for Legal Implications of Emerging Technology, the School of Sustainability, and the Research and Innovation Authority at Bezalel.

The highlight of the event was the presentation of a unique and first of its kind interdisciplinary index for smart and sustainable cities in Israel, initiated by IDC's School of Sustainability. The index examined the integration between management, strategy and urban sustainability alongside the compatibility of our cities to the new world of innovation and technology, as stated in the UN’s development goals. The data show that Tel Aviv placed first in the index, followed by Eilat and Jerusalem in second place. After this trio came cities including Ashdod, Ra'anana, Netanya and Beer-Sheva.

Among the conference participants were Prof. Yoav Yair, Dean of the School of Sustainability at IDC Herzliya, Prof. Amnon Levahi, Dean of IDC Herzliya’s Harry Radzyner Law School and Academic Director of the Gazit-Globe Real Estate Institute, Prof. Dov Greenbaum, Director of the Zvi Meitar Institute for Legal Implications of Emerging Technologies at IDC, Dr. Yuval Karniel, Deputy President for Academic Affairs at Bezalel, Tomi Deutsch, Managing Director of 'Smart City' at Milgam Ltd., Tal Venger, Partner and VP Urban Planning & Environmental Consulting at AVIV AMCG, Adv. Gili Basman Reingold, Chief Legal Advisor and Head of the Regulation and Legal Affairs Department at the Privacy and Protection Authority, Col. Avi Motola, IDF City of Training Bases Commander, Alon Ofir of the Netanya Municipality’s 'Smart City' Branch, and Yaron Rivo, CIO of the Netanya Municipality.

Ron Huldai. Photo by: Oren Shalev

"There are no 'smart cities', only smart people," said the Mayor of Tel Aviv, Ron Huldai, during his lecture on the city's efforts for the residents in matters of technology. According to him, the central element in achieving goals is cooperation. "We thought through apartment planning in the city. They need to be smaller. Think about a washing machine for a second - supposedly a cheap product that anyone can afford. However, the true cost of it inside a crowded city is higher if you take into consideration the land cost of it. The same goes for a dining area. How many times do we really use it? Think about the playroom or the living room.

What would happen if we shared a play area with a couple of other families and it would be available to us whenever we like? Think about the land that we would save… at least a room in every apartment. Furthermore, if we were to double the number of apartments in town, think about how many extra people we could contain… we already invest in co-operative bicycle and motor vehicle systems, have a “beta-site” for autonomous cars in Kiryat Atidim, and participate in global thinking groups."

Huldai continued: "This upcoming January we will launch a great series of experiments in urban matters in collaboration with TAU and the local Atidim group. We initiated a public appeal for start-ups that deal with the same challenges as we do, and offered them to come forward and test their developments in public areas around Atidim for a year. Managerial technologies will be deployed, mostly to try to locate security/sanitation hazards – eventually leading us to implement the most successful solutions in other areas of town.”

IDC Herzliya, led by the School of Sustainability, developed the first Israeli measuring tool for smart and sustainable cities, which for the first time makes it possible to estimate Israeli urban undertakings in the field of smart cities. The goal of this index is to help authorities and their residents to evaluate their progress rate in matters of urban innovation, sustainability, collaborative and open governing, education, economic development, and more.

Prof. Yoav Yair. Photo by: Oren Shalev

The index was presented by Prof. Yoav Yair, Dean of the School of Sustainability, and Dr. Nati Marom, a senior lecturer and researcher for urban planning at IDC Herzliya, together with Dr. Rafi Reish, an expert on smart cities. The project was managed by Daniel Ra'anani, a senior at the School of Sustainability.

The index was built following comprehensive research into the most notable evaluation tools worldwide, including the principal UN documents for promoting smart, sustainable and inclusive urbanism, correlated to the UN Sustainability Index.

According to Prof. Yair, "the index included a group of cities that are active in the field of ‘smart cities’ and gave us the opportunity to examine them in order to offer feedback and evaluation. Their willingness to show transparency and be subjected to an examination made by external and objective experts indicates the seriousness and significance that they give to this field of study, and for that I praise them." 

"We were happy to see that not only big and central cities were among the index's leaders, but also peripheral cities like Eilat, which shares its place with Jerusalem (second place after Tel Aviv). We can say for sure that the cities that participated in this examination are on the right path to becoming smart and sustainable cities according to the UN development goals."

The Cities’ Ranking (for the complete results, please see the Index Website)

These 19 participating authorities can be defined as the smartest and most sustainable ones in Israel at this point. The results were divided into five levels of execution, strategy and quality: A+ (above 95); A (85-94); B+ (75-84); B (65-74); C (below 64)

The city ranked in first place (A+) on the index for smart and sustainable cities is Tel Aviv.

The leading cities (A) are: Eilat and Jerusalem (second place), Ashdod and Ra'anana (third place), Beer Sheva and Netanya (fourth place).

The advanced cities (B+) are: Herzliya, Kfar Saba, Haifa and Hod Hasharon (fifth to eighth places). These cities show great advancement in some fields but focus on one core subject, leaving some gaps in other areas. Improving these factors may result in these authorities receiving a higher ranking.

The active cities (B) are: Petach Tikva and Ramat Hasharon (ninth and tenth places). These cities are smart in some ways, but lack interdisciplinary thinking and synergy. Thorough strategic thinking could improve their rank on the index significantly.

The starting cities (C) are: Lod, Ramat Gan, Shoham, Hadera, Rehovot and Ma'alot Tarshicha (eleventh to sixteenth places). Despite their relatively low rankings, these authorities have started to deal with the index-relevant issues and were therefore ranked ahead of most of the authorities in Israel.

Among the significant findings of the interdisciplinary index for smart and sustainable cities was that, when it comes to smart city technology, authorities are most active in the fields of personal security, transportation and energy. The most advanced authorities used databases and information systems to examine the efficiency of urban solutions. Furthermore, all of the cities that were ranked in the index had designated teams for the promotion and implementation of smart city strategies. In 75% of the ranked cities, the team is subordinate to the municipal information systems manager. All of the cities invested in geographical information systems (GIS) and most of them use this tool beyond the fields of planning and construction.

While all of the ranked authorities invest in collecting information for the benefit of the municipal management, and for some this information is a serious working tool, only 25% of the authorities prepared an information strategy that included an analysis of the required information, how to mine it, and how to keep it private.

Only 50% of the authorities had prepared and authorized a smart city strategy. Moreover, most of the cities that made these plans shared them with many municipal departments during the process, although just 25% shared this information with the public and other persons of interest within the municipality. 80% of the cities reached significant achievements in urban digitation, for example an efficient website, great user experience, mobile accessibility and more.

Many cities showed digital public cooperation processes and many of them had initiated these in the last two years. However, not many authorities had a clear strategy of when and how to conduct this kind of cooperation and how to make sure that every population in the city is participating – including those that aren't that active digitally. In the public transparency aspect, 80% of the authorities supplied the public with a good deal of information, although only a few provided the public with open and analytical information (Excel sheets, raw data, etc.)

20% of the authorities had invested in the founding of new innovation centers or start-up hubs, although only a few emphasized the potential of the start-ups to help deal with different challenges within the city itself. All of the cities invested in education for entrepreneurship and innovation, although just a few of them had taken action to promote innovation as an answer to the city's challenges. Having said that, in most of the authorities there are strategies in place to strengthen entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs’ status in the city, while in half of them there is some kind of investment in digital tools to strengthen business.