Global communications industry association gets wide range of public and private entities to sign up to 10-point plan

The City as a Platform Manifesto was drawn up by TM Forum and has attracted support from 50 public-sector organisations around the world

A number of UK cities are have joined global counterparts including Chicago, Dublin, Wellington, and Medellin as signatories to a manifesto for the creation of smart cities.

TM Forum, which bills itself as a “global industry association” for the communications and digital services industry, has codified 10 principles of developing smart cities. Dubbed the City as a Platform Manifesto, the document has attracted 50 public-sector organisations from around the world as signatories.

Included in this are local authorities representing Belfast, Milton Keynes, Liverpool, and Leeds. The quartet of UK cities join the likes of Atlanta, Limerick, Las Vegas, Wellington, Tampere, Miami, Utecht, and Santander. The European Commission is also a signatory to the manifesto, as are various learning institutions, including the University of Bristol, and a range of private-sector tech companies, such as Orange and NEC.

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The ten principles all signatories have agreed to are:

• City platforms must enable services that improve the quality of life in cities; benefitting residents, the environment, and helping to bridge the digital divide
• City platforms must bring together both public and private stakeholders in digital ecosystems
• City platforms must support sharing economy principles and the circular economy agenda
• City platforms must provide ways for local start-ups and businesses to innovate and thrive
• City platforms must enforce the privacy and security of confidential data
• City platforms must inform political decisions and offer mechanisms for residents to make their voices heard
• City platforms must involve the local government in their governance and curation, and are built and managed by the most competent and merited organisations
• City platforms must be based on open standards, industry best practices and open APIs to facilitate a vendor-neutral approach, with industry agreed architecture models 
• City platforms must support a common approach to federation of data or services between cities, making it possible for cities of all sizes to take part in the growing data economy
• City platforms must support the principles of UN Sustainable Development Goal 11: Making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.

Carl Piva, managing director of TM Forum’s smart city initiative, said: “As the world’s population expands and cities become denser, smart city programmes are contributing to a better quality of life. However, technology by itself will not solve the challenges facing urban centres around the world. Instead, a shared, collaborative approach between the public and private sectors is needed in the development of local data economies to create services that will improve lives.”