How smart cities can rebuild world

Dinis Guarda, my guest today on Inside Ideas, is spearheading an urban revolution that connects cities to the digital innovations that can transform the lives of their citizens. The respected author and academic is behind the Citiesabc project, which is taking this forward by turning cities into live digital platforms.

“Cities are the epicentre of our humanity’s social models. The project is reinventing, uniting, supporting and ranking the top 1000 cities/nations with a 4IR blockchain, AI, fintech, IOT digital platform. We need a tech blockchain – a new Magna Carta – for our cities, citizens and communities,” Dinis said. “We need to use our digital tools and platforms to coordinate, support and unite cities and their struggling populations. Every city needs to become a live digital platform, where ideas, resources, tech, data, intelligence can be used and shared. We need to use the enormous possibilities of digital transformation 4IR for human service, by creating the best outcomes for health, the economy, culture, social systems, the environment, and science, with the optimal mix of nature, technology, humanity and arts. We built Citiesabc with this in mind.” 

Dinis, who has worked with major organisations including the UN, UNESCO, and the European Space Agency, is a renowned leader in 4IR, AI, fintech, digital transformation and blockchain. His expertise gives him confidence in the power technology has to transform the world for the better, but there is a flip side.

I think as humans and as society, I would say that the next five to 10 years are going to be decisive.

“The US elections is a paradox that shows that even in the country that is the wealthiest or second wealthiest in the world, a huge part of the population doesn’t believe in the truth and in the facts, and they don’t want to. That part, is the part that scares me a lot. But just apply that to technology. So this 50 or 40 percent of the population that do not believe in reality and they want to write another reality – if they’re coding software – I don’t need to say any more, and this is the biggest challenge to humanity.”

When it comes to what might happen next for humanity, Dinis looks to the silver screen for signs of a potential silver lining.

“I think as humans and as society, I would say that the next five to 10 years are going to be decisive towards what we are going to be as humans for the next 1000. I always look at the two metaphors – the Star Trek and Star Wars or even Terminator. The narrative of Star Trek is that you can go 1000 years in the future and humans still exist – there will be some shifts, ups and downs, but it’s still OK. But if you go to the Star Wars normally there’s an emperor that takes over the world, or even Bladerunner which is actually close to what is happening in humanity – is that five or 10 corporations control the entire economy.”

As an author, Dinis has written widely on the different futures that might materialise from the technology revolution. In 2019, he published the book 4IR: AI, Blockchain, FinTech, IoT, Reinventing a Nation in 2019; and with the Citiesabc project he is demonstrating how fast-growing cities around the world can enable their citizens to meet particular needs.

The Citiesabc initiative Dinis is building, in collaboration with global industry leaders, academics and experts, is the latest innovation from this serial entrepreneur, who has companies such as the Ztudium tech platform, a digital and blockchain startup that created the software Blockimpact (sold to Glance Technologies Inc). He is also the founder and publisher of intelligenthq.com, hedgethink.com, fashionabc.org and tradersdna.com, and is co-founder of techabc and citiesabc.

I am delighted Dinis can join me today on Inside Ideas to share his unique insights on what we must do to ensure the pathways that lie ahead are paved with technologies working to improve the lives of all, not destroy them.