Building Smart Tools for Sustainable  Cities:

Smart cities offer great opportunities to promote the use of digital technologies and data to support decision-making processes in cities and to provide solutions to improve sustainability, resilience, emergency management or effective and equitable service delivery. However, while 50% of the world’s population is connected, the other half is still not. Access and affordability are uneven. The UN Innovation Technology Accelerator for Cities (UNITAC) in Hamburg was established by UN-Habitat, UN OICT and HafenCity University to support governments with their digital transition, helping them build skills and capabilities to develop, procure and effectively use digital technologies. Through collaborative work with local governments, the UNITAC Hamburg team has developed a digital tool that addresses some of the challenges that urban planners face in informal settlements in eThekwini, South Africa, as well as a model to predict risk scenarios using data from Jordan and Brazil. The main objective of this webinar is to showcase and share some of the successes and challenges in the process of developing digital tools to support cities in their digital transformation journeys, as well as to provide an opportunity for conversation and knowledge exchange with the audience.