Cities that are more technologically equipped find themselves more adept at managing the pandemic, whether it is real-time crowd management, temperature-taking, diagnosis and treatment, to just supporting the functioning of day-to-day urban life in this new normal. It is said that technology will play a big part in helping us cope with living with the virus in the short to mid-term and evolve to help mitigate the onset of the next big health crisis in the long-term.

As Indonesia’s pace of urbanization accelerates throughout the years, so has its smart cities ambition. Presented with the pressures of making growing cities livable, Indonesia has set in motion plans to evolve into a smart nation in order to keep pace with the scale and acceleration of today’s urban challenges.

In 2017, Indonesia kicked off an ambitious digitalization program called “100 Smart Cities”. However, a recent survey conducted by the Institute for Management Development (IMD) and Singapore University for Technology and Design (SUTD) revealed that Jakarta, Makassar and Medan had dropped places in the Global Smart City Index. Notably, Jakarta lost 13 places from last year to end up at 94.

This World Cities Day, as COVID-19 continues to disrupt our lives and livelihoods, there is a great urgency in reviewing our smart city approach and ensuring that our urban infrastructure and technology is robust enough to manage the worst of what is to come.

While there are many factors to consider when it comes to transforming cities, it is important to address the most fundamental of them all – water.

Water is undeniably essential for our survival, but the demand for water has skyrocketed as a result of the pandemic, with increased cleanliness and public health standards in the form of handwashing and the sanitation of public and private spaces, and not to mention rampant use in the healthcare sector. The pandemic has highlighted the importance of reliable access to safe, clean water and how any form of disruption can be detrimental.

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