Sydney's use of ICT for citizen benefit merely mediocre

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 24 November 2011 11:11

IT Policy - Government Tech Policy

Sydney has been placed 12th - behind Moscow and Beijing - in a list of the of the world's 25 largest cities, ranked for their ability to exploit ICT for the benefit of their citizens.

The study is the second in a series of three being produced by Ericson in collaboration with Arthur D Little that aims to capture the triple bottom line (social, economic and environmental) benefits of ICT from three different perspectives: the city, its citizens and businesses.

The overall ranking is Seoul, Singapore, London, Stockholm, New York, Paris, Tokyo, Los Angeles, Shanghai, Beijing, Moscow, Sydney, Buenos Aires, Istanbul, Sao Paulo, Delhi, Mexico City, Mumbai, Cairo, Jakarta, Johannesburg, Karachi, Lagos.

Before Melburnians get upset at the thought that their city might lag not only Sydney but Lagos, Ericsson explains that the selection was made based on the United Nations' list of largest cities with the addition of the capitals in the two leading nations in the Networked Readiness Index, published by the World Economic Forum. These were added: "to ensure that cities with a strong ICT development are captured in the study."

Also, "The rule of maximum one city per country has been applied for all countries, except for the three most populated countries in the world; China, India and the United States'¦[and] to ensure geographical spread of the study, two cities have been added; Sydney and Johannesburg."

Ericsson says the ranking has been calculated "based on an Ericsson analytical framework in cooperation with Arthur D Little with input data collected from Ericsson market research, publicly available sources including a large number of business articles, statistical analysis and academic reports."

Ericsson is positioning the index as "a tool that can help city authorities and decision-makers monitor the position and progress of cities along the ICT-development curve," and says it "should be read as the starting point in an open dialogue, rather than the final word on how cities can progress their triple bottom lines."

According to Patrik Regårdh, from Ericsson's Networked Society Lab, analysis of a city's ICT maturity from the perspective of individual citizens is essential. "Successful cities excel at attracting ideas, capital and skilled people. Such positive attraction requires constant progress in economic terms, as well as within a social and environmental context," he said.

Ericsson has set up a comprehensive web site for its network cities project, with interactive maps that enable comparisons to be made between the different cities in the study. The first two reports - city and citizens are available for download. The third study -business has yet to be completed.

Sydney was ranked 11th in the City Index which contained the advice: "Medium-scoring cities such as Beijing, Sydney, Moscow, Buenos Aires and São Paulo ought to cherry-pick key city challenges that can be addressed with ICT-based solutions, and launch and coordinate focused initiatives."