Brazil launches new smart cities program

After the national IoT plan, a digital transformation strategy and discussions around a 5G policy, the Brazilian government has launched a new smart cities program.

An old program, launched in 2012 and called Cidades Digitais, aimed mostly to interconnect city-managed buildings with a fiber optic ring.

Over 200 localities have received infrastructure and related initiatives under this program, which is being terminated.

The new program of strategies for sustainable smart cities was announced Tuesday at the Smart City Business Brazil event in São Paulo by Vitor Menezes, secretary of telecommunications and digital policies at the ministry of science, technology, innovations and communications (MCTIC).

“This national plan is a government policy. MCTIC will organize it and add other ministries to the project,” Menezes said at the event, according to Agência Brasil.

The strategy would bring indicators and set goals for the transformation of Brazilian cities into smart cities under social, environmental, cultural and economic perspectives.

During his presentation, the secretary cited as examples of measures cities could implement the installation of AI-enabled security cameras, facial identification monitoring, crop monitoring, rainwater harvesting systems, electronic medical records and connected urban mobility. 

Menezes said the plan will be structured by a smart cities chamber, to be created in August, that will analyze the sector, so a comprehensive study on each city’s preparedness would begin later this year.

“Brazil has an infrastructure problem. Most cities often lack connectivity infrastructure. So you can't talk about smart cities if we don't have connectivity. This is not a program to last months, but years. And it's a constantly evolving program too,”  he was quoted as saying.

A decree is expected to be published soon establishing this national policy and providing more details on the chamber’s format, he said.