**4. Findings and discussions**

Based on observations and interviews, we found many responses to be largely positive in terms of attitude toward technology and what it can do to facilitate economic development in the continent. Almost all the respondents used the term leapfrog at least five times through the interview. There is a can-do attitude even in countries that have not developed sufficient human resource capacity. It confirmed the abundance theory that is keeping policymakers hopeful that it will guide Africa's competitiveness. Psychologists suggest that this theory explains a world in which any person "with the correct attitude, training, or spiritual alignment can acquire personal abundance which should lead to material abundance: wealth regardless of economic or social circumstances."

*"With many young people in Africa and the spread of ICTs, nothing will stop Africa from leapfrogging. I have noted that Rwanda has attracted top learning institutions from across the world offering Africa the opportunity to develop global standard labour force…*" a senior African Union Official said in the opening ceremonies of Transform Africa in Kigali).

#### **4.1 Building the infrastructure**

All of the participants were aware that building of the ICT infrastructure to support smart cities is critical but expensive and as such they are creating new embracing new models of infrastructure development, To build especially the hard infrastructure such as building and space; transport and utilities network; information and communication network they need to leverage public private partnerships (PPPs). Indeed, virtually all of the countries that had started major infrastructure development of new smart cities, leveraged on PPPs. Infrastructure has always been a major problem in Africa but the continent has extensively dealt with it. The current state of infrastructural requirements especially the undersea cables is in place. However, only a handful of countries that have developed or are in the process of developing smart cities (see Table below) as infrastructural bases for smart development.

The African transport infrastructure performance quality which has over time dropped in quality can be replaced with smart urban transport systems that combine and integrate the use of big data, AI and other multiple technologies. Apart from this, other infrastructural requirements can also be applied in areas of energy production and distribution through smart grids. Smart public and private health management systems through AI, blockchain and big data analysis can also be developed and devise innovative and efficient ways for disaster management. The use of additive manufacturing brings affordability and efficiency in production. Subsequently, smart cities leverage on e-commerce platforms to formalize the commercial entities. and education.

Many of these new cities are envisaged to create thousands of new employment opportunities in the emerging technology sector in the continent. Some of the cities at the advanced stages of development are seen in **Table 1**.

The soft requirements of infrastructure fall in the second category and include governance and leadership; community organizations and innovation forums. This can easily be the weakest link because technology is incessantly being developed and "…we love tech so much (that) it inhibits our ability to judge its pros and cons…" [26]. There is a need for public policy framework that enables the infrastructural base to provide an integrated support to the other dimensions of the smart city [27]. This will require leveraging on the regional pan-country like the Smart Africa Initiative [27] as well as other in country initiatives.


#### **Table 1.**

*Financing model of African smart cities.*

*"If Africa is to succeed in the digital economy, there will be need to develop a single digital market that will support scalability of local innovations across the continent. Small markets find it difficult to compete with such nations as China, United States of America and India. There is also need to create a technology-monitoring mechanism to understand changes in technology, future workforce demands and developing the necessary capacities to remain informed of the different varieties of opportunities for the future of work. For example, Africa must be ready for the emerging 4*th *industrial revolution and its technologies in order to remain competitive…"* United Nations Economic Commission for Africa executive noted.

#### **4.2 Considerations for the future smart cities in Africa**

The fourth industrial revolution (4IR) describes the ongoing global conversion of labour-intensive processes to the use of information technology. It is not only ubiquitous but is also happening dramatically. Some of the pillars of 4IR include robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), internet of things (IoT), big data, customer service personalization, cloud computing, and other forms of digital innovation. The resulting shifts and disruptions imply that we live in a time of both great promise and great peril. As the 4IR technologies intensify, cities are becoming smarter, new business models are emerging and informal enterprises are continually under disruption. Experts have argued that 4IR has the potential to rejuvenate Africa's economy, enhance its productivity and improve its global competitiveness [27]. As a result of this, emerging technologies support the development of smart cities. As shown in **Figure 1**, the dimensions of a smart city require an interactive process between people, ecosystems, interconnected systems, and responsive infrastructure.

#### *4.2.1 Goals, aspiration and quality of life*

African cities are uniquely advantaged to have a competitive edge for the future. Some of these advantages include limited legacy drawbacks; youthful consumer population; urbanization; entrepreneurial culture; connectivity; overarching government leadership strategically positioning ICT as an enabler [4]. Furthermore, the rise of the gig economy has created employment opportunities that has impacted upon poverty reduction in the emerging economies [1, 28]

#### *Orchestrating Smart Cities, New Disruptive Business Models and Informal Enterprises DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94075*

thereby improving on the quality of lives. With a population that has increasingly been well educated and exposed to different cultures and lifestyles, the goals, aspiration and quality of life for the urban individuals has improved over time.

Lifestyle is a key driver for smart cities. The broad areas of concern in the individual's lifestyle include government efficiency, employment, transport, education, healthcare, energy, environment and public security and safety. As a result of the adapted lifestyle, individuals are ambitious to have freedom to choose without compromising on their feeling of independence. Furthermore, the same individuals are desirous of being in control and feeling safe and secure. To meet these objectives, the individuals need to have opportunities for creation of wealth and sustenance of their lifestyles.

### *4.2.2 People*

The dimension of people relates to the nexus between the opportunity seekers who double up as the innovators, the residents who desire the quality of life, the employers who utilize the opportunities and visitors of the urban areas. A smart city makes use of the pragmatic ideas by creative people to provide smart scientific solutions that address the lifestyle concerns around the city. As a result of the solutions, the residents of the smart cities have access to a number of features that range from smart homes, smart buildings, smart offices and larger smart ensembles like airports, shopping malls hospitals or university campuses which are fitted with a multitude of mobile terminals and embedded devices as well as connected sensors that are monitored and programmed for certain decisions. In addition to these, there are a whole range of interconnected logistical support and services through various platforms that provide background support to the lifestyle solutions. These functionalities are enabled through technology by IoT and robotics.

*"The deployment of sensors across the city of Nairobi has lessened crime especially carjacking that was rampant prior to installation of ICT infrastructure to monitor transport…."* a Kenyan delegate told the conference.

*"Our endgame with ICTs in Kigali is to see smart services especially Smart city tourism that will be enhanced through Smart ticketing, Smart-security services, intelligent crown management, improved transport services, virtual reality, linguistic services or even smart city bots to guide visitors around. Through IoT, additional features can be availed to the discerning tourist on the basis of their smart phones. These services would require the local city's residents to be adequately skilled to be able to perform the back ground support tasks…"* a Rwandan official noted while explaining their future plans for Kigali.

Already employers are leveraging on a smart city infrastructure and have many routine tasks accomplished at decentralized locations. This sets a basis for online gig and platforms. A challenge that however that subsists is that whereas online platforms will not always have individual workers' interest as their priority, there is increased agitation for increased regulation of this sector. Secondly, by its very definition, online gig tasks can be carried out in a borderless fashion with minimum regard for local regulation on working conditions.

#### *4.2.3 Building future ecosystems*

Digital technologies have enabled inclusion, efficiency and innovation of opportunities. A smart ecosystem is a conceptual extension of smart space from the personal context to the larger community and the entire city. It straddles the public and private sector and the broader community. It encompasses policies, laws, regulations and processes that are weaved together to obtain a desired smart outcome. An enabling ecosystem is based on a skilled and equally aspirational citizenry as well as transformational leadership. To enable continuous innovation, smart cities proactively encourage innovation programmes that include labs, training, skills development and partnerships with different academic, vocational and research institutions. A Smart city ecosystem facilitates the integration of data and information. This is done by initiatives that support open data, analytical services as well as monetization framework. The ecosystem needs to encourage data sharing whilst protecting privacy and what and how data is generated. Herein lies the digital age paradox, where transnational firms have comprehensive information on individuals' lives and can trade it in the global marketplace, whereas individual citizens struggle to get rudimentary information on growth in income and wealth at a macro level [1].

#### *4.2.4 Interconnected systems*

The world is more connected than ever [19, 20, 28]. Similarly, as shown in **Figure 1**, a smart city has interconnected systems that cover different facets of the city's activities. Smart cities strive to make strategic choices that attain transformational leaps in the quality of life within its region of operation. There are many ways in which technology connectivity can be used in pursuit of urban management. For example, through the use of IoT, roads can be equipped with LED street lamps that sense pedestrian movement, and consequently dimming and brightening in accordance with the movement. These IoT enabled gadgets also sense and collect pollution data in the air, and send this information to a data base. Additionally, the IoT gadgets can detect humidity and weather conditions in an area and advised to the consumers of this information.

Furthermore, IoT can be used to analyze the traffic on roads and adjust parking metre fees accordingly. This feeds to an automated urban traffic management system. IoT can also identify weak infrastructure like potholes on roads thus helping authorities prioritize their budget for urgent repairs. Remotely monitored close circuit cameras, will take pictures of an accident scene and send it to some database, but machine learning and AI would be required to translate this data into actionable information that can trigger emergency services to save lives. Finally, the IoT enabled street lamps can also act as free WiFi routers to nearby citizens.

Such interconnected systems allow the smart cities to remove inefficiencies that come about as a result of manual monitoring and intervention. The role of human intervention would now be directed to higher skilled tasks. This calls for a re-think into our skills development in the continent by facilitating creation of mechanisms supporting school-to-work transition in each country by (i) developing content around career choices and investing in counselors to help students navigate the transition (ii) revamping TVET institutions to meet the new demand for jobs (iii) changing the negative perception of TVETs and (iv) collaborating with the private sector to provide internship to graduating students as part of the transition process.

### **5. Conclusion**

Smart cities allow the leveraging of digital transformation in a shift to abandon traditional paradigms and create a novel globally entangled experience and lifestyle. As the cities become smart, formalization of the informal sector improves. New digital businesses are forcing the shift into formalization which benefits the economy by making it possible to measure the economy and better worker safety. Through the use of technology, and the democratization of information, smart

*Orchestrating Smart Cities, New Disruptive Business Models and Informal Enterprises DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94075*

cities enable transnational innovation processes that would be targeted at universal, grand challenges. Our contention is that the absence of legacy systems and the advent of affordable broadband has set SSA on a roller-coaster of change that may see the formalization of informal enterprises by new business models offering better value. The combination of informality, technology and disruptive business models brings a new territory of change and discovery [14]. However, not every country in SSA has had the chance of seeing change and discovery. Several other factors stand in the despite the fact that SSA has the necessary infrastructure to enable greater productivity through technology.
