How NASA and the UN are using location intelligence to build smart cities in developing countries

For smart cities to succeed, they require real-time, location-based strategies, solutions and responses to effectively deliver the services that make cities work. These include everything from health and education to sanitation collection.

To date, the limited capacity and capabilities of the developing world has meant that they have not had the same opportunities as developed countries for the development and consumerism of geospatial technologies. But that is quickly changing.

“The developing world is learning from past mistakes by the developed world, particularly in attempting to create a technology in search of problems to solve, and is ensuring that geospatial information and technologies are more ubiquitous and closely tied to addressing real world needs and development issues,” said Greg Scott, senior advisor for global geospatial information management in the U.N. Statistics Division.