In a recent webinar, Smart Cities Council members delivered quick-fire presentations covering some of the tech that they encouraged everyone to keep an eye on this year.
Watch the recording, or keep scrolling to read through the session highlights and takeaways.
Speakers
- AI-Driven Urban Management – Sameer Bhandari (VANTIQ), Rignesh Soni
- IoT & Smart Cities – Catherine Caruana-McManus (Meshed IoT)
- Cybersecurity & Insider Threats – Darren Murphy (Core Integrity Pty Ltd)
- Smart Transport & AI Vision – Karandeep Singh Chadha (KC), Timothy Young (Smart Access)
- Digital Urbanism & 3D Planning – Nathan Quadros (Veris)
- IoT Data Aggregation – Matthias Gelber
- Special Welcome by: Robyn Francis (Smart Cities Council APAC) & Nicole Stephensen (Ground Up Privacy)
In alignment with the growing need to prioritise data protection and privacy, Nicole Stephensen, Privacy Expert and founder of Ground Up Privacy, began the webinar with an acknowledgment of country, as is important and customary in Australia.
Rignesh Soni discussed AI-driven urban management, focusing on urban infrastructure and mobility. As President of AIATP and Director of Strategic Development at SPPlus (now part of Metropolis), he highlighted key trends shaping cities in 2025. AI-powered urban mobility enhanced real-time traffic management, with examples like Carnegie Mellon's AI traffic signals reducing congestion by 40%. Predictive navigation, AI-enabled traffic signals, and smart parking solutions optimised urban efficiency. Digital twins, as seen in Singapore, deepened infrastructure and traffic simulations for sustainability. AI and machine learning improved public services, waste management, and transportation planning. Emerging trends included AI-augmented public transport, micro-mobility, smart grids, and autonomous vehicle adoption. The overarching vision was that AI-driven modern infrastructure was no longer optional but essential for creating smarter, more liveable cities.
Sameer Bhandari, speaking on behalf of Vantiq, emphasised the need for smart infrastructure in electricity grids and broader urban development, highlighting global challenges such as ageing infrastructure, outdated technology, and rapid urbanisation, especially in APAC. He cited data showing APAC’s pressing need for smart city solutions, given its growing urban population and environmental risks.
He outlined a vision for a "smart city utopia" powered by AI, including smart public safety, healthcare, disaster management, and infrastructure. He stressed the importance of AI-driven real-time responses, anomaly detection, and automated learning for improving city resilience. However, he acknowledged that adopting AI-driven smart city solutions was often hindered by integration challenges and cost concerns.
Vantiq’s approach focused on real-time, event-driven AI solutions that worked with both modern and legacy systems. He shared examples of their projects, including public safety in Alabama, disaster management in Japan, smart buildings in Tokyo, and smart ambulances. Smart Cities Council and Vantiq collaborated to help drive these innovations into the next phase of urbanisation.
Catherine Caruana-McManus explored how IoT and AI were not only interconnected but also essential for cities striving to harness real-time data for better decision-making. At its core, IoT provided the foundation for data collection through connected devices such as sensors, actuators, edge cameras, and RFID technology. This data acquisition was essential for smart city initiatives, ensuring accurate, hyper-local, real-time insights into urban environments. Meshed, as a leader in this space, had been instrumental in physically deploying IoT networks, leveraging LoRaWAN—a low-power, long-range communication network—to support smart city and industrial IoT applications. By establishing these networks across Australia, Meshed enabled a more connected urban ecosystem, where data seamlessly integrated with existing infrastructure such as cellular and satellite backhaul.
However, IoT was only one piece of the puzzle. The true value emerged when real-time sensor data was processed, analysed, and transformed into actionable insights. AI played a pivotal role in this, integrating and interpreting diverse data streams to support informed decision-making. Yet, as Catherine emphasised, the rapid rise of AI within smart cities was often misunderstood. While the industry buzzed with discussions around generative AI, the reality was that cities were not yet fully leveraging AI’s potential. Instead, practical AI applications in urban environments often centred on machine learning, pattern recognition, root cause analysis, and predictive modelling—each of which provided critical insights into urban operations.
One of the key challenges in deploying IoT and AI solutions was ensuring end-to-end security. In an era where cybersecurity threats were escalating, cities and infrastructure providers had to prioritise encryption, penetration testing, and robust data anonymisation measures. LoRaWAN, for example, was the first low-power wide-area network (LPWAN) to feature end-to-end encryption, offering enhanced security for urban deployments. Cities also had to adopt a standards-based approach to interoperability, avoiding vendor lock-in and ensuring long-term scalability.
Beyond the technical framework, real-world applications of IoT and AI demonstrated their potential to transform city operations. A compelling example was Meshed’s involvement in Victoria’s Level Crossing Removal Project (LXRP), a major infrastructure initiative designed to alleviate congestion and improve transport efficiency. Through collaboration with a smart construction digital twin consortium, Meshed deployed IoT solutions to monitor environmental conditions such as air quality, noise levels, and vehicle movements. One of the most innovative elements of this project involved placing GPS trackers on crane jibs used to lay concrete slabs. By feeding this data into predictive modelling tools, the project team was able to forecast site completion with 95 per cent accuracy—optimising scheduling, reducing costs, and improving overall efficiency.
Another powerful application of IoT and AI lay in public safety and emergency management. In response to the devastating bushfires that had impacted Australia in recent years, Meshed collaborated with the New South Wales Government to deploy sophisticated environmental monitoring stations in bushfire-prone areas. These stations, designed to assess flammability conditions in real-time, provided crucial data for emergency services, enabling them to refine planned burning schedules and allocate resources more effectively. Given that many urban environments bordered forests and bushland, this initiative played a critical role in safeguarding both natural and built environments.
As the smart cities movement continues to evolve, the convergence of IoT and AI remains a fundamental driver of innovation. While AI’s role in urban environments is still maturing, the combination of real-time sensor data, predictive analytics, and robust cybersecurity measures is already delivering tangible benefits. By focusing on practical, data-driven applications, cities are able to move beyond the hype of AI and embrace technologies that delivered measurable, impactful outcomes for communities.
Catherine’s insights underscored a crucial takeaway: the future of smart cities lies not just in advanced technology, but in the thoughtful integration of IoT and AI to solve real-world challenges. Whether in infrastructure, transport, public safety, or environmental management, the ability to harness data effectively will determine the success of tomorrow’s urban landscapes.
Matthias Gelber, speaking from San Pablo City in the Philippines, shared his journey into air quality monitoring, which had begun as a personal concern for his daughter's health. He recounted how an air quality monitoring device revealed alarmingly high carbon dioxide levels in a five-star hotel at 5 a.m., leading him to uncover that the hotel's management had been turning off fresh air supply overnight to save electricity. This revelation underscored the power of data and the need for better public awareness about indoor air quality. Recognising the broader implications,
Matthias and his colleagues developed a platform to aggregate and translate air quality data into actionable insights, linking it to productivity, health, and overall workplace wellness. His work highlighted the necessity of integrating air quality considerations into smart city planning, as improved air conditions could lead to substantial economic and health benefits.
Darren then shifted the focus to cybersecurity, particularly the risks posed by insiders within organisations. He emphasised that while smart cities relied on technology and data to drive efficiencies, the biggest vulnerability often came from the people handling this data—whether employees, contractors, or third-party suppliers. Darren categorised insider threats into malicious acts, such as intellectual property theft and fraud, and non-malicious ones, like accidental data breaches due to poor cybersecurity awareness. He pointed out that 85% of data breaches involved an insider, either acting alone or in collusion with external actors. With corruption and state-sponsored cyber espionage on the rise, especially in emerging economies, organisations had to take proactive measures to identify and mitigate these risks before they led to significant financial and reputational damage.
Karandeep Chadha, a member of the Smart Cities Council Smart Transport Hubs Task Force, discussed smart asset devices and emerging technologies shaping smart cities. The task force, established 18 months ago with around ten members, focused on integrating technology, connected systems, and data analytics to enhance transport experiences and urban environments. Several macroeconomic and societal trends in Australia were influencing technological developments, including rapid population growth, housing affordability challenges, increased focus on environmental sustainability, rising security risks, digital innovation, and shifting workforce models with more flexible work arrangements. Emerging technologies playing a critical role in this transformation included advanced surveillance systems with AI-powered video analytics, facial recognition, and robotic security devices for crime prevention and infrastructure protection. Drones and LiDAR technology were being increasingly deployed for environmental monitoring, maintenance, and urban planning, providing high-resolution spatial data for better decision-making.
The use of Building Information Modeling (BIM) integrated with GIS was enhancing planning processes, while augmented reality simulations were helping predict environmental impacts such as flooding and bushfires. IoT and sensor networks were revolutionising infrastructure with smart lighting, smart bins, and AI-driven property management solutions for energy optimisation and environmental monitoring. Smart transport hubs were leveraging AI, IoT, and spatial analytics to improve passenger experiences and network efficiency. However, the success of these smart city initiatives relied heavily on collaboration among federal, state, and local governments, industry partners, universities, and startups. Effective data sharing, co-innovation, and knowledge exchange were essential to maximising the potential of digital, AI-driven, and IoT-integrated technologies in reshaping urban infrastructure, security, environmental management, and transportation networks.
Tim Young joined the conversation with a focus on the intersection of AI, machine learning, and smart mobility. As an expert in digital transport, he discussed the rapid developments in AI applications within transportation, such as autonomous vehicles, predictive maintenance, traffic optimization, and mobility-as-a-service platforms. He noted that AI technologies were becoming more deeply embedded within smart mobility solutions, helping cities optimise traffic flow, reduce congestion, and improve sustainability. By analysing real-time data from various sensors, vehicles, and infrastructure systems, AI was playing a critical role in making transportation more efficient and responsive to real-time conditions. Tim also highlighted how smart mobility solutions were improving accessibility, offering more inclusive transport options for people with disabilities or those in underserved communities.
Nathan Quadros discussed the role of 3D city modelling and digital twins in urban planning and development. He explained how Veris’ advanced modelling technologies were helping cities visualise and optimise urban spaces, from infrastructure projects to public spaces. Digital twins were being used to create virtual replicas of physical assets and environments, enabling better decision-making and more effective resource management. As cities become more complex, the ability to simulate and monitor the performance of urban systems in real-time would be crucial for their sustainability and resilience.
A key takeaway from the session was the importance of data integration and collaboration in driving the future of smart cities. By harnessing the power of AI, IoT, and real-time data analytics, cities can tackle the challenges of rapid urbanisation, sustainability, and efficiency. However, as shared by Nicole Stephensen in her wrap up, successful implementation of these technologies will depend on strong partnerships between public and private sectors, as well as a shared commitment to innovation, security, and ethical responsibility (inclusive of privacy and human rights more broadly).
Nicole emphasised that, while a central ethos of smart cities is to leverage technology and data for beneficial outcomes to the community, cities should be measured in their approach. Where 'personal information' is involved, the smartest cities will have in place foundational security and privacy governance to ensure technology and data initiatives are lawful and meet community expectations.
To learn more, add your commentary or contact the speakers, please contact Smart Cities Council.
