As part of the Global Smart Cities Initiatives, it's of necessity to set up the Russian Innovation Partnership (RIP) on Sustainable Cities. It'd be wise to consider the good practices as the European Innovation Partnership (EIP), launched the EC, composed of a High-Level Group and Stakeholders Platform, of which we are a member: The EIP “proposes to pool resources to support the demonstration of energy, transport and ICT in urban areas, where the relevant industries are invited to work together with cities to combine their technologies to address cities’ needs”. http://www.eu-smartcities.eu/ Another example, the USA Smart Cities Council collected a big pool of leading technology companies in energy, water, IT and communications and transportation: Alstom Grid, AT&T, Bechtel, Cisco, EDF, GE, IBM, Itron, MasterCard, Microsoft, National Grid, Qualcomm, S&C Electric Company, ABB, Alphinat, GRID2020, Invensys, MaxWest, Opower, Sungard and Zipcar. They all are committed to share the “vision of a world where digital technology and intelligent design are harnessed to create smart, sustainable cities with high-quality living and high-quality jobs.” http://smartcitiescouncil.com/ Recently, the IEEE, the World's largest professional association for the advancement of technology, has announced for the IEEE Smart Cities Initiative. http://smartcities.ieee.org/ The Russian Sustainable City Platform could become the most advanced and extensive in conception, scope and scale, comprising dedicated Technical Working Groups (ICT & Telecommunications; Transport & Mobility; Green Energy and Energy Efficiency; Infrastructure and Buildings; Sustainability Group; Finance Group, Roadmap and Development Planning Group). It is to create strategies, policies, planning, programs and standards, launching the Smart Cities demonstration projects and introducing smart urban technologies to facilitate the sustainable development of Russian regions and cities. Other activities will include training and education, exclusive seminars for government officials and mayors, pooling prospective investors, projects and investments to coordinate all the interested organisations, as government agencies and local authorities and municipalities, NGOs, businesses, start-ups, corporate entities, venture capital and private equity providers, banks and other investors. The EIS LTD is willing to share its experience by contributing the necessary programs, knowledge and content, taking responsibility for the Smart City Roadmap and Development Group. From our long experience dealing with government agencies, municipalities, large and small, we found that the key obstacle is not lack of resources or willing, but rather a proper advancement institution, procurement procedure and knowledge. Given that, we developed a guide, as the Smart and Sustainable City "X" Program, for decision makers, mayors, city managers and city councils, showing that to become smart, sustainable and inclusive is the future of any modern city or new community. Currently, there are dominating narrow technical visions of future cities and intelligent communities, like Cisco's smart connected communities, IBM's smarter cities, intelligent energy cities, etc., which the EIS' holistic approach is looking to overcome. In sum, three key steps are unavoidable to embark on the track of smart and sustainable urban development: 1. City council is to adopt the strategic comprehensive and holistic vision of sustainable city 2. City is to be remodeled as a sustainable smart ecosystem of urban system, economic system, social system and governance system 3. City is to be run by a centralized intelligent management platform distributed via the internet of things or M2M communication networks As an example, Moscow's municipality has been failing to follow these three key steps thus having small chances to become a real smart city: In all, Smart City "X" Development Strategy outlines how to build a new city or transform legacy cities, from Adelaide to Peking to London to Washington to extended Russia's cities, as fully sustainable territorial smart ecosystems:
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