Kevin C. Desouza | technology

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Smart Governance in the Contemporary Era: Journal of Urban Affairs

April 22, 2021/0 Comments/in Articles, big data, China Institute for Urban Governance, Information Technology, innovation, Policy Informatics, Public Policy, Queensland University of Technology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University /by Kevin Desouza

Naim Kapucu (University of Central Florida), Jiannan Wu (Shanghai Jiao Tong University), and I have co-edited a special issue of Journal of Urban Affairs on smart governance in the contemporary era.

In the 21st century, we have seen an increase in activity around making cities “smarter” and “intelligent” through the creative application of information systems. In an ideal world, a smarter (and intelligent) city should be able to leverage data in real time to increase its situational awareness, thereby enabling effective and efficient decision-making at the individual, organizational, and collective levels to advance its goals of resilience, sustainability, and livability. From a design, planning, policy, and implementation perspective, however, our theoretical and empirical knowledge on smart cities is limited. One reason for this is the simple fact that the term smart city is nebulous. Some use the term smart city to highlight advances in sustainability and greening of the city, while others use the term to portray infusion of information via technologies to better the lives of citizens that reside in these spaces. Even others consider the presence of a high level of citizen engagement in the design and governance of the space as a key attribute of smarter cities. It is our pleasure to put forth five papers as part of this special issue on smart governance across cities in the contemporary era. The papers provide guidelines for cities to consider for designing and managing smart communities.

To access the issue, please click [LINK]

Urban Heat Islands – Sustainable Cities and Society

April 6, 2021/0 Comments/in big data, Information Technology, Policy Informatics, Public Policy, Queensland University of Technology /by Kevin Desouza

Kenan Degirmenci, Walter Fieuw, Richard T. Watson, Tan Yigitcanlar, and I have an article in Sustainable Cities and Society.

Policy and technology responses to increased temperatures in urban heat islands (UHIs) are discussed in a variety of research; however, their interaction is overlooked and understudied. This is an important oversight because policy and technology are often developed in isolation of each other and not in conjunction. Therefore, they have limited synergistic effects when aimed at solving global issues. To examine this aspect, we conducted a systematic literature review and synthesised 97 articles to create a conceptual structuring of the topic. We identified the following categories: (a) evidence base for policymaking including timescale analysis, effective policymaking instruments as well as decision support and scenario planning; (b) policy responses including landscape and urban form, green and blue area ratio, albedo enhancement policies, transport modal split as well as public health and participation; (c) passive technologies including green building envelopes and development of cool surfaces; and (d) active technologies including sustainable transport as well as energy consumption, heating, ventilation and air conditioning, and waste heat. Based on the findings, we present a framework to guide future research in analysing UHI policy and technology responses more effectively in conjunction with each other.

To access the article, click [LINK]

Situation Awareness for Incident Response – Computers & Security

December 5, 2020/0 Comments/in Articles, Information Technology, innovation, security /by Kevin Desouza

New article in Computers and Security.

Organized, sophisticated and persistent cyber-threat-actors pose a significant challenge to large, high-value organizations. They are capable of disrupting and destroying cyber infrastructures, denying organizations access to IT services, and stealing sensitive information including intellectual property, trade secrets and customer data. Past research points to Situation Awareness as critical to effective response. However, most research has focused on the technological perspective with comparatively less focus on the practice perspective. We therefore present an in-depth case study of a leading financial organization with a well-resourced and mature incident response capability that has evolved as a result of experiences with past attacks. Our contribution is a process model that explains how organizations can practice situation awareness of the cyber-threat landscape and the broad business context in incident response.

To access the article, please click [LINK].

Pathways to the Making of Prosperous Smart Cities

September 16, 2020/0 Comments/in Articles, Information Technology, innovation, Queensland University of Technology /by Kevin Desouza

New paper published with M. Hunter, B. Jacob, and T. Yigitcanlar in Journal of Urban Technology.

Pathways to the Making of Prosperous Smart Cities: An Exploratory Study on the Best Practice

In this paper, we examine the understudied issue of the pathways to smart cities. While the extant literature on smart cities offers several insights into what smart cities are, with a few notable exceptions, it has less to say about how they come to be. With this latter question in mind, we identify three pathways to smart cities: (1) a greenfield development pathway, (2) a neighborhood development pathway, and (3) a platform-oriented platform. Drawing on nine different case studies, we offer some insights into the way in which each of these pathways is, more or less, able to realize the desired smart-city objectives. While exploratory in nature, the study offers unique insights into the pathways to smart cities as well as areas for future research.

To access the paper, please click [here].