The high-tech, well connected, and green smart city is a showcase for how technology can bring society to a level of efficiency and resiliency beyond what has been seen. However, in order for these smart cities to function effectively, they need many operators with strong situational awareness, able to maintain optimal function for each of the smart city’s components (e.g., electric power, natural gas, water, emergency operations, transportation, cybersecurity). Furthermore, recovery from severe events, whether natural or intentional, requires these same individuals to work even better together in high-stress, high-stakes situations. This cannot be achieved without engineering the smart city to include the human components, and ultimately is a co-optimization problem that includes physical, cyber, and human assets, all functioning at peak within- and between-components of the smart city. Optimizing the human components also brings in the capability for anticipatory resiliency / antifragility, gearing towards anticipating and remediating future problems at lower costs and impacts to the population.
Session Category : THE BIG PICTURE