Build a Smart City to Build the Future

Build a Smart City to Build the Future

• JUNE 2, 2020

Picture this a city with sensors to monitor traffic, lightning-speed internet, high-rise buildings living in harmony with urban forests. This might just be our future.

Smart cities are the future of the world. While the definition shifts depending on where you look, the overarching purpose of a smart city is to become highly advanced in infrastructure, education, transport, healthcare, and other factors that make a community livable.

The characteristic features of a smart city include:

1. Tech-based infrastructure
2. Harmony with the environment
3. Well-thought-out urban planning
4. Ease of access to essentials
5. Sustainable economic and civil practices
A fundamental building block of a smart city is the technology it uses to power just about everything. While smart cities use a combination of technologies for daily functioning, the Internet of Things (IoT) forms the epicenter, facilitating the interconnection of physical and digital elements of a smart city.

Why Children Need to Learn About Smart Cities

Children and smart cities have one thing, if any, in common they’re both the world’s definitive future. In order to prepare children to plan, indeed live in smart cities, it is crucial that they are exposed to the principles now. As countries take steps to get smarter, civil engagement will be a priority, and children exposed to smart cities from an early age will be able to positively contribute to the designs of the future.

Learning about smart cities in the age where they’re still only in the pipeline has other advantages, too. Through exposure to building and planning smart cities, children are encouraged to exercise their creative muscles enough to rival what a few governments and private companies are already doing. Above all, smart cities need to be livable, so it’s only fair that the future inhabitants have a say in its planning.

Of course, the value of a smart city stems not so much from how much technology they have as from what they do with it. Developing a smart city and having smart people run it go hand in hand. Encouraging children to dabble in principles of a smart city from early in their lives nurtures their innovative and problem-solving skills, allowing them to master technology well in advance.

Preparing for the Future

In light of this, Modo launched StepUp, an intermediate level course focused on sensor technologies and technology literacy. It uses a unique SmartCity bot that drives home the concept. It does so using a smart city layout and explores the relevant applications that we will experience in our days to come.

The world has changed dramatically over the last decade and, as a new decade begins its rise, children must be prepared not just for today, but for tomorrow, too.

Modo Edulabs envisions a world where our children are digitally savvy and technologically literate. We prepare kids for the 21st century century through our innovative online courses and custom-designed products.