Maturity Model for Cognitive Cities

Abstract

The key mission of cognitive cities is to bring into symbiotic cooperation the government, citizens, and the business. To achieve this, cutting-edge information technologies are used to build smarter cities (cognitive cities) in which administrations stand as principal providers for smart services to citizens, constructed communication between business/industry, and more efficient city governance. As a result, citizens, businesses and government are empowered with information that eases the relations between these three parties and the inclusion of cognitive processes for decision-making. This chapter focuses on the interaction between administrations and citizens. It highlights an eGovernment framework through which eEmpowerment of citizens can be achieved via the promotion of citizens’ participation. With the help of information technologies, such as geolocation, the Internet of things, and open source software and hardware, among others, smooth communication between government and citizens can be established, thus facilitating the decision-making processes in cognitive cities. The illustration of three different applications of intelligent agents shows how the eParticipation of citizens can be increased. The first case explains how collaborative working environments are used in the public sector for a collaborative legislation process, to support people in a virtual space in a time- and place-independent manner in the creation of an organic law. The second application illustrates how eDemocracy processes can be facilitated with the help of a so-called social voting advice application, which takes into consideration trust values among citizens and governmental representatives. Finally, the third application highlights how civic participation can be enhanced through building communities of interest and communities of practice within the SmartParticipation platform.