The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF virtual intervention. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
***
>> MODERATOR: We can start. Welcome on our first panel, Making Smart Cities Happen, Navigating Through the Web of Paradoxes.
Please welcome our special guests during this panel. First, Janusz Cieszynski, Minister of Digitalization in Polish Government. Isabella Groegor, Vice-President, AWS. Dariusz Rogowski, Lukasiewicz Network, Przemek Pyziel, founder of Planet Heroes, and Szymon Ciupa is online with us.
Let's start from first because we have not enough time for so big discussion about smart cities. For sure we can discuss about this issue almost a few hours. Minimal few hours.
So let's start from Mr. Janusz Cieszynski from the governmental level, governmental point of view.
What are the biggest challenges for turning the smart cities idea into reality from the perspective of the minister and the whole government because smart cities not only your but general across almost whole government.
>> JANUSZ CIESZYNSKI: I will have to say that the cities themselves and their will to develop these solutions and I think some kind of vision on the local government level that it is important to -- when you are a city to be a smart city in 2020's.
And I think that this is the most important factor because when we look across local governments in Poland, we see that if they want to do something, they will find the means to do it. And if -- so if they start wanting to do smart cities, then we'll have smart cities. And I don't think that there is much that the government can do about this apart from maybe some legislative things that will make services for the people, for the public being available online, that's for sure.
We're working on that all the time, and we want to adapt this to the law to what people want to do, that's sure.
But I'm 100% positive that you can in the legal framework that's here in Poland at the moment, you can implement a lot of smart city solutions. And they are being implemented as we speak. So if anyone says that that is a real problem, that you can't do it, then I will just tell them okay, so go to these cities and see how it works. Because I think that too little, too little local governments recognize that smart cities are, first of all, budget smart, which means that they can bring significant savings to the local governments. Savings on electricity, savings on the administrative spending.
And I think that there is no real barrier at the moment that would stop anyone from implementing smart cities. And I would like to be at a point where the governments come at us and say okay, so we need this, and this to do smart cities. At the moment the only thing I can imagine is they all say we need money from the government to do that.
And well, of course, that is an option, and we are financing more and more programs that have a digital component. And, of course, it will be very good if local governments, the municipalities would go for the smart cities. But I don't think that it's the government's role to show them the exact way because the local governments know what their citizens want, and I think that they should be given the chance to make it happen.
>> MODERATOR: You mentioned many times about local governments. Of course, it is crucial for the future of smart cities.
But in your opinion, how to build this cooperation between government and local administration. How to explain local administration that smart cities is a good solution for administration, for citizens. What is the role of government in building this cooperation?
>> JANUSZ CIESZYNSKI: Very little role.
>> MODERATOR: Only money?
>> JANUSZ CIESZYNSKI: Mostly, yes. And even that I believe is not a very big issue because, of course, I mean for a complex smart city project that is obviously going to cost a lot.
But I think that you can do small projects and then evaluate them and innovate and think of how you can engage the local companies and what you want to do. And it is just a matter of conviction, determination on the local government side.
I have spoken to many mayors, many heads of municipalities that said okay, so I am a mayor of a 25,000-inhabitant town and if I want my town to still be on the map I have to invest in good education based on new technologies, I have to invest in internet access, I have to help the operators to build internet connections for my people.
And they understand that. And when they see that there are savings there to happen thanks to using smart cities, I believe that they will go for it.
And I also think that if we try to -- if we over push local governments, it will give 180-degree different result than we thought. Because I know for a fact that the mayors are very independent, and they don't want the government telling them what to do.
And the only moment when they accept being told what to do is when a lot of money goes after that. And I think that we should start from small projects that every local government can fund on its own.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much. I will come back to you with some extra question.
But now let's focus on business point of view. And I have a question to Isabella.
If you were to name the key challenges from the business point of view for the smart cities development, what would that be?
>> ISABELLA GROEGOR: Yes, so quite interesting. I would agree with the minister on a couple of points but coming to that in a second.
Now I think the first point where the challenge starts is that there is really not one unified and global definition of smart cities. If you look at that one, you look at the studies, you have tons of those ones. And these are to your point also very complex undertakings. And with this complexity comes the question for the cities where do I start.
I can go that big, I can get that small when it comes to the scope of smart cities.
The second one is that comes with it the complexity is on one hand side. On the other side the cities have their daily business to go through, but they also have on the other hand to make sure that they go into the renewal of infrastructure, that they make the cities every day smarter.
And that involves resources on both ends. Whether it's money, whether it's people. And that's also to a very, very big part a constraint that defines the cities.
When we look at what prerequisites are there and we looked at on the global basis -- and by the way, in some parts when we look at Asia, those cities are pretty ahead when it comes to the renewal of the infrastructure. But we are now also seeing the movement very much coming up over here.
But when we look at the prerequisites, it is the question of the skill sets. Does the cities have the technology skill sets to make sure that they can innovate with the latest technologies? That's one part.
The second, is the experience around? And what is their understanding and the capacity of taking the risk of innovating and making sure that they can pretty early understand how to get to the innovation and how to measure the innovation power that they are bringing to the table.
And the final one I would say, which we see arising but still is a challenge is the availability of open data. Open data is important. Many organizations are capturing data, but it should be more and more used to solve the real problems of the communities.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much. But can you provide us with some concrete examples how cities manage to improve quality of life for their citizens by using new technologies.
>> ISABELLA GROEGOR: For example, if I go straight to the open datasets. One of the examples is again, as I said, we see that more and more coming up that open data and open datasets are made available for analysis and for further use. And this is encouraging.
By default, the communities to innovate themselves, to take an active part in the innovation and to drive innovative solutions and applications. And one example that I would like to raise here is the transport for London. Transport for London has made their transportation datasets, they gave open access to those ones. And by giving the access, they have energized a really, really large crowd of developers. Those developers have up to date developed 600 applications on top of the datasets that are addressing the need of the London commuters.
And you can think about applications such as getting realtime information about the traffic or getting access to charging points for zero carbon enabled vehicles.
So I think exactly the point of open datasets and using the power of crowd, using the technology, providing a cloud platform in this case and bringing the data on the cloud platform has significantly raised the level of innovation for city -- for Transport for London.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much. In all these issues, I think the crucial is trust between citizens and local authorities and government, of course. But let's focus on the trust in local level.
And I have question to Mr. Dariusz Rogowski. What is the role of independent assessment laboratories in building this trust in IT products and their security features in the context of their application of smart cities?
>> DARIUSZ ROGOWSKI: Yeah, while building smart cities it is very important to protect assets, public and private assets of citizens. And, of course, the residents of smart cities, they want their solutions, smart solution they use in everyday lives to be protected and they want to trust them.
And how to build this trust? This is a question. And we have answer to this. One of the possible paradox because we can define here in this panel, in other paradox saying that the most stringent security measures we impose on people and residents, the less likely is the same very people will obey these stringent rules.
So for three years now, here in Katowice as a part of the Lukasiewicz Research Network, governmental organization, this is a research network, I must say that is the third biggest in Europe. Here in Katowice we have conducted scientific and research project whose goal was to set up laboratory to certificate and evaluate IT products according to security criteria.
Security criteria according to common criteria standard and according to the Cybersecurity Act and European Cybersecurity Framework which is to be established in Europe in a short time.
So very important thing is to independently and impartially assess if our smart solutions deliver enough security to our assets. And how we do them in our IT security evaluation laboratory.
First of all, we made testing and vulnerability analysis of such solutions.
In this way, we can check if potential vulnerabilities of these products can be exploited by attackers. This evaluation can be done in different security assurance levels.
What does it mean? It means that the higher level is of this evaluation the more stringent requirements we put during the evaluation process. And the more this product and security control is implemented in those products can be trusted by those users. And there are many products that can be evaluated according to this common criteria standard. Among them are, for instance, components of smart grids like smart meters, energy meters. Can be, of course, Internet of Things devices. Components of industrial control systems. Control units of vehicles, yeah. So there are plenty of products. For instance, software, mobile applications, web applications that are used very often in administration.
So we can deliver through this independent and impartial evaluation in our lab here in Katowice assurance to those products and to citizens that every time they use these solutions data can't be breached, yeah. And this is one of the solutions. This is one of the attitude how to solve this very important issue.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much. One more question to Janusz Cieszynski about the cybersecurity in European. Polish local authorities are ready for smart cities, if we are talking about cybersecurity?
>> JANUSZ CIESZYNSKI: When it comes to cybersecurity, we are just in the middle -- at the beginning of the process that we have started in the government which is to actually provide funds for every local government in Poland, every municipality to invest in the cybersecurity audit that will help them to diagnose if everything is okay. And if not, then what should be done.
But that's just one thing. And I think that it is hard to believe that the local governments themselves will develop these smart city solutions. I think that they will just buy them. And it is important that we think that -- that we -- when we buy the solutions we think about their cybersecurity as well.
And, of course, this will be a bigger and bigger issue. Although, if I was to say where the cyber attack would happen, I wouldn't say it would be the smart cities. I would say the existing infrastructure. It wouldn't be the smart city solutions, it would be the existing infrastructure of cities.
And one more comment because we seem to think that there has to be this big technological awareness necessary within the local government to successfully deliver smart cities. I have to disagree with that because when many municipalities or owners of waterworks, of heating plants, of very sophisticated infrastructure and the mayor does not need to know anything about that because it's, you know, it's not interesting for him.
And what they look at is the goal. And I think that a good smart city solution like, for instance, the public transport, which is very easy to explain, I mean you give out the data so anyone can access it. And when you give the data accessible to the public you get 600 use cases, yes, very, very short time.
And it's the same with smart cities. The people who are in charge, they are usually very well aware of what their citizens need or what they need, for instance, in smart meters.
Why would they want to do smart metering? Because it's expensive to have someone go around and check the meters. That is easy to understand, and you don't have to understand any kind of technology that stands behind it. Just understand the need and the simple calculation that is going to save you two or three people that you have on the payroll.
And that's -- so I think that good smart city solutions like any other digital solution are ones that are easy to explain to the public. And if you can't explain it in two sentences to the citizen or the mayor, well, then you should work on the sales pitch.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much. I'm afraid that the public discussion about smart cities there is one thing that smart cities is a big cities.
So I have next question to Mr. Szymon Ciupa. Are smart city solutions only for metropolitans? Can maybe small cities benefit from the transformation into a smart city?
>> SZYMON CIUPA: Thank you. I think it is worth saying that cities regardless of their size both large as well as medium and small face similar challenges.
For example, the consequences of climate change, quality of environment, population immigration. For example, in Poland, onslaught of residents to several large cities in Poland. And other moving to suburbs. In other countries, it might be a dynamic increase of number of inhabitants.
Other challenges, public transport, as you said. Effective sustainability and improved energy efficiency, manage and develop municipal infrastructure but also spatial management and urban planning which affects other areas.
And also digital transformation. We are talking about a huge chance, but it is also a challenge to make it properly, I think. So all these challenges affect on quality of life in cities. And all of these challenges require the use of smart solutions in all cities.
I think also that cities must have -- must change the way they operate to much more integrated manner. Now usually they are working in traditional operation, though, with silos and lack of cooperation and data exchange between departments.
And I think that the huge challenge in all cities, also medium size to this is transformation to smart integrated model of management where services are focused on improving the life quality, service management and the current business management and technology and digital resources are integrated based on updating the city data and building cooperation between citizens and also between governments of local communities.
So I think in this model cities capability to effective response to these conditions and to these challenges I said and can build integrated services and products based on open data. Like urban, but we have also examples in smaller cities in Poland where very interesting applications and benefits are based on open city data like Rzeszow, Gdansk, Warsaw and other cities. So I believe that such integrated model and smart city solutions can and even should be implemented in medium sized cities and small ones.
I think also that these kind of cities are more likely to change and manage solutions. They are more agile and have better cooperation for citizens and shorter decision time. It is very important. So I think the smaller cities should take advantage to discuss smart solutions and sometimes they are more effective even than bigger ones. I think they have just have interest in their needs, expect benefits and act in cooperation with other stakeholders.
So the huge challenge is also education of cities. And I think more information in cities that are implemented in Poland in this field and of awareness of digital transformation of cities. For example, local development programs supported by association of Polish cities, and it is very important to our cities.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much. But I think that in whole our discussion about digital transformation of cities into a smart city, there is very important -- the most important part of the transformation is citizens.
So I have a question to Przemek. In your opinion, can smart cities happen without smart citizens? What is the role of grassroots initiative or other community buildings campaign to help local authorities build smart cities in this digital transformation of local administration in Poland?
>> PRZEMEK PYZIEL: So thank you for the question. At the very beginning maybe I will briefly tell you what we are doing here at Planet Heroes.
So we built the concept of the platform, the internet that is extremely simple on the one side but is very complex at the same time. So what we are doing is we try to encourage people to go from the online to offline. So we organize the cleanup events. We try to change the attitude of the cities and to the public space by involving them in the simple cleanup activities. And we do it on the massive scale.
So the platform started like year ago. We operate in 140 countries. And like, for example, in Poland we made like few thousands of cleanup events this year, this pandemic year, what was quite hard.
And the beauty of the simplicity of this project is that we try to motivate the people by guarantee them the financial support. So in every country when we operate with the partner, we guarantee that we pay for the organization, for the NGOs or by the user by themselves five years for every bag of trash collected from the public space and this is warrantied by the partners. And as we find out, this is kind of great motivation and it change the attitude and gives the very local communities the tool, the simple tool because now they can have a space to show their work, they can meet, they can organize by the platform and have the motivation to do something.
And it works completely different in the different part of the world. So in Europe, for example, users in 90% of the support is transferred to the NGOs. In Africa where we operate because we are also a member of the United Nations Habitant Program and Wasteway City Campaign and we work with the cities in Africa. And the motivation, the financial motivation there is very crucial.
So we try to work with the citizens on the very low level and gathering them in the groups of few like 10 people or not so many people but working from the very local level.
The other thing is why our like platform is the concept of the smart cities because we touch very few aspect of the smart city concept itself. We also collect the data. And together with our partner AWS, we -- because the thing is that when users publish their project on our platform they have to document the project by the pictures and the picture cannot be modified. So we have the picture of polluted place before the action, after the action, we have proved that the trash is disposed and so on. So every cleanup event is supported by 10 pictures, and we have thousands of pictures from all over the world. And we analyze them by the type of trashes and the type of producers.
And knowing when the picture was made, where it was made, and to what type of trash we have, then we can like predict the problems or patterns of pollution in the common space. And this is like what we are doing in the terms of smart city.
But yeah, as I said, like what we are doing, we are trying to encourage people to get out from the, you know, safety or -- the safety space and do something.
So our like approach to the smart city is taking people from online to offline and to taking action.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much. I will be back to you with some exact question.
But now let's back to big business point of view on smart cities. We have on the market a lot of solutions for local administration for smart cities. For example, cloud services, of course, one of the most important I think right now.
But in European, what to do to help administration to use these solutions. What to do, how to explain them why they should use these solutions right now because I feel that it is not a mystery. The Poland cloud services in local administration is rather not so popular right now and it should be.
So what we should do to change the situation?
>> ISABELLA GROEGOR: I think that we need to raise the awareness. I need that we need to educate, not about specific but about the power of cloud in general. And also point out and bring to the absolute forefront the benefits that are arising out of exactly using this type of technology.
Now, one of those things is the ministers already alluded to the fact it is also a question of resources and we spoke about that as well. And using the cloud means that cities in all sizes can offload from keeping the lights on so keeping their resources running into the innovation space.
I think this is a really strong argument for cities because, as already mentioned, the environment is constrained and being able to invest more into the core service, which is looking after the well-being of the citizen, of the society, building the resilience, building the sustainability of the cities is an important fact and is an important shift.
I think that the overall education part and education sounds like it is a one way. It is a dialogue. It is a discussion about the new technologies, and it is also the ability to bring different groups of people to that knowledge.
We, for example, have committed to train 29 million people worldwide until 2025 regardless of the background. They may have technology, they may have any other background, in those technical skills and the understanding of the power of cloud.
It also means bringing those capabilities and those technologies into NGOs, into a broad community giving them the opportunity to experiment but also bringing that into academia to make sure that the next workforce is educated, and we are doing a lot of different initiatives there as well.
Also in Poland where we have specific programs and about 10 universities have already subscribed, and we are providing services also there.
So I think it is about awareness, it is about bringing that into the open discussion, and also about understanding the capabilities and the power.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much. Mr. Szymon, I have question maybe more general right now about digitalization of Polish cities.
Where are we now in this process of digital transformation of Poland in local administration? And in your opinion, what we must do to effectively use potential services solutions in cities to change reality of our Polish cities into absolutely smart cities?
>> SZYMON CIUPA: First of all, I think that we can all agree that digital transformation of cities including the provision of fast information flow with using, for example, the cloud and efficient access to data, effective processing of data analysis are the key competencies of these days.
In Poland, cities are more and more aware of this. The process of digital transformation was, of course, accelerated by pandemic and serve our situation with need of management, communication in online digital way.
But also in the field of support decision making. So we now have more and more digital services, and they keep getting better in the middle-sized cities but also in smaller ones and bigger. They are more comprehensive. They optimize the city operation and measure benefits of digital change.
But I think that there is definitely a lot more to do in this field. Like strategic and holistic approach to digital transformation and digital strategy. Digital transformation is not a productivity but a systematic work in some kind of ecosystem.
Process-based approach to system implementation and wider use of data and data-based decision making.
So I think it's -- we have a lot of work to do in this manner. And documenting in writing, communicating about the benefits of digital transformation. But also constant improvement of digital competencies and awareness. But not only in -- for cities managers and cities employees but also for the city residents.
And I think that we also should change cooperation between city department and residents and improve the interoperability and data openness to make more innovation and application for better quality of life of citizens of our cities.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much. Przemek, I promised you next question.
So what is your role of small companies, startups as yours, in this process of digital transformation? Is it digital transformation into smart city only chance for big companies, big tech companies, or maybe in this process there is a place for startups, for small Polish companies to find some place on the market and help one hand of effort in the process and the second hand to build a strong business.
>> PRZEMEK PYZIEL: Well, I will start saying that I hope that one day our small startup will be big so, yep.
But the thing is that, of course, there is a space for the big companies and there is a space for small project. The project like ours like what is our place, we brought like completely different attitudes to the problem.
And due to the nature of the project and nature of the startups itself, we have been able to implement it very quickly. So I can tell you just the first idea for the project was in 2019 and the project get live after a year.
And after two years of the first meeting of the founders we have like quarter million kilograms of trash collected worldwide. It means that I guess in bigger corporation and the big fields it would take much longer.
But, on the other hand, the truth is that the project like ours can grow or can scale, right. So and we will not do the scale without big corporate partners or the municipal partners or the bigger, I would say, colleagues supporting us. Because the thing, the most crucial things that we need is the users. And the users needs to be aware of the platform. And on the other side, we need the financing and the financing for the project come from the companies.
So I think at the very early stage we can address some problem, but at the end we need the bigger colleagues to make the change.
>> ISABELLA GROEGOR: Can I add to that?
>> MODERATOR: Sure.
>> ISABELLA GROEGOR: I think that really foremost the transformation in cities is an opportunity for small companies. Whenever I see, and we have the experience around the globe working with cities, whenever they gather around the platform there is a vibrant ecosystem that starts to grow.
So in like in London, the independent builders, they are startups, they are partners, this is really something that builds around those platforms. And specifically in the city cycles this can also then grow because of a global cloud platform and get exported. So there is also an economic transformation aspect for cities and their ability to then export those capabilities globally and reach a broader audience. I think absolutely to your point.
>> MODERATOR: We agree that this transformation could be a change for Polish companies in this area and maybe how government can help these Polish companies to start business in area of building smart cities around big business.
>> JANUSZ CIESZYNSKI: I have heard for so many times that maybe the government should just stay out of the business and that would help the companies the most, but I won't propose any new ideas of the government getting into small idea.
We have a lot of big business, big business, State owned businesses and I think it would be reasonable to stick to that.
But back to your question, I think that during our discussion we -- it has shown that the small entity has the idea, and it is made possible by AWS which is a platform that can make the idea, first of all, easily replicated. And second of all, we are not hundred percent sure on that, but I assume that is the truth, easier and cheaper to build.
Because you have ready components, and you just have building blocks like with Lego and you build, and the service is ready.
And you can add all sorts of layers to that. And I have seen, for instance, I have seen some services that AWS makes available for its -- for its partners, for instance.
You have a service that can provide you with a satellite image of any given parts which is under the coverage of this. And you just say where, what are the worst SLA to get that delivered, how many you want, and you have the price on that, and you just get it done.
And I mean, imagine, for instance, if you would want to check the spaces that have been cleaned up and you have to buy access to satellite imaging. That's, you know, two years you develop the company and then two years to have the satellite.
And with a platform like AWS, you just go online, and you just click and there. So I think that it is a good thing for the small companies because it's -- the time from idea to business is further and maybe you don't need as many expensive resources such as, for instance, engineer's work to make it happen. So this is a very good thing.
As you said, what your company is doing, you can explain it in one sentence and it's very obvious. We get places cleaned up because there is a very clear incentive to do it. That's the end.
And I have to say I don't think that cities have to understand cloud. I don't think -- I don't think anyone cares about that. Because it's not the problem of local government whether it's cloud or it's physical infrastructure. Nobody cares about that. And one thing which is bad about the cloud actually is that the cloud has a financial model which is totally opposite to what the local government, but also many companies I think have.
Because the local government from time to time, it has some money for a capital expenditure. And under operational expenses like in any company, you go to your boss, and you say I want to increase the OpEx. And he says okay, come back tomorrow and maybe you have an idea.
And you have 15 slides and PowerPoint and let's invest $100 million. And that is awesome, and we will do it. That is the same in the local government. So the promise of the cloud is that you are not going to have to spend $100 million because somebody else spent it already. But you are going to have to pay. And the better the service, the more popular, the more you pay.
It is totally around -- it is totally not good for local government, which is why I believe that cloud-based smart city solutions will be good only in the cases where you can prove that they will save money.
Because that's an easy tradeoff. You come to local government and say okay, you pay 100 today, you are going to pay 50 and don't really care why you pay 50. You just pay 50 and that is 50 for me that I can spend it on something else.
And so I think that there is much work to be done on the -- for the cloud companies to find them financing model in which you can actually CapEx the OpEx, yes, because you have all of these EU funds projects. And this is how a lot of IT gets done in the whole of public administration.
You have this European project, and you have I'm very rich today but when it ends I'm very, very poor. And it is a totally different way than the cloud is financed.
So I think that there is much work to be done on that side as well. So I think that the small projects where you have the idea and you have to turn the idea very quickly into business or material, something material, and money saving projects, these are the two types of projects that will be sustainable in the cloud.
And for the bigger projects, in the current model, I don't think so. Maybe for very rich cities like London. But Poland, I don't think so.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much. Final three questions to our guests.
First to Dariusz. We agreed that awareness is one of the biggest break in the process of digital transformation of Polish cities. In European, how can we fight with this problem? Is it only a question about education and knowledge? Or maybe we can use another solution in this way?
>> DARIUSZ ROGOWSKI: This point was raised here during our discussion about building awareness, a bit extent on that. I must say that the most important factor, the weakest link in the security chain is the human factor, as we know that.
And, of course, we can raise awareness and education about security on both levels. For smart citizens, I can say the residents how to use their intelligent products in a secure way. I mean to be aware of about threats and loopholes in devices and how to avoid risky situations when you use.
And to the other level is how to say -- how to tell developers how to develop their products to be secure. And, for instance, here in our laboratory we have been running trainings for developers for many years now. And I must say that we teach them how to build their products according to stringent security, how to work out security documentation, how to test the devices and how to make analysis of their vulnerabilities.
And what does it mean for these developers? I know that from experience because they told me so that in that way they are more aware how to introduce and implement security by design code of practice in their development environments.
And this is very important because in that way we can provide components, for instance, of clouds like workstations, PCs and servers which were verified, tested by third-party like this security laboratory we set up in Katowice. As I said, in the Lukasiewicz Research network Institute of Hammock. So it is very important factor to build this awareness on two levels. For smart citizens, smart cities, and the developers.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much. And the final question to you maybe first, Isabella.
If we right now will got the golden fish and we can only have one wish about smart city, what would it be? We need more money? We have too much or too less regulation or better regulation? We have no -- not enough knowledge? Or maybe something else what in your opinion we need to build real smart cities in Poland, how to speed up this digital transformation of cities. What we need?
>> ISABELLA GROEGOR: I think that one thing we definitely will need is a shift into the infrastructure to make sure that the aging infrastructure is going to become smart.
Once we have done that, the whole speed, the whole smart city movement is going to very much speed up.
So it's, first of all, digitizing this, making sure that there is connectivity, that there is broadband, that there is 5G everywhere. And from there, taking that from there, those projects can arise small or big in different areas and in collaboration between the citizens, the community startups and big tech.
>> MODERATOR: So we need more money for investments in this area?
>> ISABELLA GROEGOR: Definitely for the communication and for the connectivity part, yes.
>> MODERATOR: Okay. Janusz, what you would wish this golden fish?
>> JANUSZ CIESZYNSKI: I would wish that there were more ideas that were easy to present to the people, to the decision makers, and I believe that this is the way that would do the most good for the smart cities because I think, of course, well, infrastructure, it has to be improved in many areas. It has to be improved significantly.
Of course, you know, money for everything, it is always important, but I think it is always the ideas because you look on local governments all over Poland and I think that every local leader has some kind of idea which he finds the money, he finds the resource, he finds the way to do it.
You have to -- you go and talk to these people. Every one of them will tell you that okay, so I'm really interested in that. And you just ask them the question, so what is the most interesting thing you did in the last 12 months? Everybody has one. And their eyes light up, and they say I did this, this, this, this, and it is really awesome, and you should look here, here, here. Everyone has something like that.
More ideas, the bigger the chance that larger percentage of these local leaders when talking about this idea will be talking about something related to smart cities.
>> MODERATOR: Great. Dariusz, what would you wish to this golden fish around your specialty? Money for investment? Maybe another regulation or knowledge or something else?
>> DARIUSZ ROGOWSKI: Not money, frankly. We have enough money to run our business. The most important factor is the human factor. I must repeat it.
Why? Because we need more experts, security experts and on the market we have lack of them.
So this is very important.
Knowledge. Once again, knowledge and experienced geeks, we can say IT geeks to help us to find loopholes, vulnerabilities and then try to counter them. This is my wish.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Szymon?
>> SZYMON CIUPA: I will say I think we need money but smart money in the hand of cautious, wise local governments and their employees which operate in an ecosystem.
And they should be able to identify needs and we have some kind of determination to have new ideas and to implement innovative solutions.
I think that's all. Money is not only, we have wise and smart people.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. And Przemek?
>> PRZEMEK PYZIEL: I would add that I just wish that we have open minded citizens that are open and to be part of the smart city revolution because without citizens it won't happen.
So even with the infrastructure we have to convince the citizens to be sure that they will be a part of this revolution.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. So summarize, we need more money more investments. More ideas and more people who will be ready to realize these ideas into the real life. Smart money, smart people so it is done. And very smart citizens who will be ready to use these technologies which smart politicians will enter the real life in the smart cities. So that's great.
I wish that in next one, two, maybe three years we will meet and decide that all of our wishes become true, and we will live in real smart cities in Poland and in global world. Thank you very much.