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090 SMART CITIESSMART CITIES ARE KEY TO INCREASING EFFICIENCY“ IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO BUILD AN EFFICIENT URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE WITHOUT RELIABLE ENERGY ACCESS ”FRANS VREESWIJK, GENERAL SECRETARY AND CEO, THE IEC (INTERNATIONAL ELECTROTECHNICAL COMMISSION)World Smart City Forum 2016World Smart City Forum (#WorldSmartCity2016) will explore how interconnection can be accomplished. It will point to tools which are already available to help cities reach their objectives faster, more efficiently and with better outcomes. www.worldsmartcity.orgBy 2050, 66 per cent of the world’s population is expected to be living in urban areas. Today cities consume around 70 per cent of all energy produced globally, and they generate 70 per cent of world GDP. The challenge will be to supply these populations with basic resources like safe food, clean water and sufficient energy, while also ensuring overall economic, social and environmental sustainability.A SYSTEMS APPROACHCities are giant systems with countless subsystems which all depend on electric power and hardware to move people and things, collect data and exchange information. It is impossible to build an efficient urban infrastructure without reliable energy access.However, today’s cities need to substantially increase the efficiency in which they operate and use their resources. Major efficiency improvements can be achieved by horizontally interconnecting individual systems such as electricity, water, sanitation and waste management, transportation, security, environmental monitoring or weather intelligence. This approach gives increased information sharing and coordination and helps manage incidents in one sector that impact the others. It also offers considerable opportunities for cost-reduction.THE ROLE OF THE IECThe IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) is the world’s leading organization that prepares and publishes globally relevant International Standards