2 Smart city learning and education

Technology is connecting cities enabling them to collaborate. This facilitates a system of learning. Many of the issues cities face are global challenges. For example pressure on healthcare systems and climate change. When cities collaborate they exchange ideas and solutions but also what hasn't worked and why. Cities can then adapt ideas to meet their local needs. Cities can also work together on funding bids to pilot innovation and draw in investment. This can be facilitated by broker organisations that bring together cities around common goals. For example The City Protocol Society was established in 2012. The City Protocol is a non-profit organisation working with city leaders, technologists, urban designers, architects and citizen leaders to develop more efficient, resilient and sustainable future cities.

It works across diverse cities by interconnecting them to create the internet of cities. Another example is the Green Digital Charter, a Eurocities initiative. It commits cities to reducing carbon emmissions through ICT and promoting progress in tackling climate change through innovative use of digital technologies in cities. The Green Digital Charter has been signed by forty-six European cities from twenty countries representing more than twenty-five million European citizens.