Nigerian telecoms service 9mobile has expressed its support for the ‘Smart City’ initiative by the Lagos State Government.
This was disclosed by 9mobile’s Chief Executive Officer Alan Sinfield, in a statement.
The telecoms chief said this at a panel discussion of the economic summit – Ehingbeti – organised by the state tagged, themed ‘For a Greater Lagos: Setting the Tone for the Next Decade.’
During a panel session with the theme ‘Digital Transformation Solutions for Smart Cities’, Sinfield said that 9mobile would lend its support in the actualisation of the Lagos State Government’s ‘Smart City Masterplan’.
Sinfield said, “At 9mobile, we are continually innovating, and smart city and smart building and other IoT solutions will be delivered through the deployment of technologies, infrastructure and by collaborating with stakeholders to provide seamless access.
“Telecommunications is the foundation and the critical building block for the delivery of a smart city. It supports the delivery of digital transformation and inclusion and underpins how the goals of full financial inclusion for everyone will be realized.”
He noted that a critical element of the project, once it had been fully implemented, would be “service management”.
Sinfield said urged stakeholders to “never lose sight” of the importance of “necessary support teams to … keep things working”.
He said, “One additional critical element will be the service management element. We should never lose sight that once envisioned, developed, and implemented, nothing ever works well or is sustainable without the necessary support teams to maintain and keep things working.
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“There is a real need to focus on developing the skills and support framework and not just the appealing AI/ML and technology aspects.”
The telecoms boss said that 9mobile is poised to support creativity by being a platform for entrepreneurs to “develop their ideas for the future”.
He said, “At 9mobile, we have plans to further support an environment that enables creativity and visions to be realized by using our resources to build ICT development areas and sandboxes for entrepreneurs to develop their ideas for the future.”
For the creation of a digital revolution, Sinfield espoused the collection of data, as it would support the necessary automation of smart cities.
He said, “Data is the building block of the digital revolution, storing and profiling this for various use cases will support achieve the necessary smart city automation.
“While discussions continue as to the extent to which humans can participate and provide real-time data input to the collective data feeding automated machine learning, first steps in this journey will rely on sensors and machine-based data which is much more reliable.”
Sinfield praised the efforts of the state government for its consistency in ensuring the continuity of the Ehingbeti Summit, as it had continued to shape the economy of the state and the impacts it had created.
Other notable speakers on the panel include Future Software Resources, Nkemdilim Uwaje-Begho, Yemi Saka of Deloitte, and the CEO of Civic Consulting, USA, Alexander Shermansong.
Saka remarkd, “there must be an investment in human and social capital which is key to actualizing a smart city eco-system.”
