Developing countries more promising to establish smart cities

Cities in developing countries and areas like Latin America, China, Portugal and Turkey look more promising in becoming new smart cities in the future, said experts in a conference in Istanbul on Wednesday.

"Developing world is evolving faster and getting more intelligent than the developed one. They are even better than the U.S.," said Stewe Lewis, the CEO of Living PlanIT at the World Intelligent Cities Summit which kicked off on Wednesday.

Experts at the two-day meeting agree that young population is the most important driving force behind the transition to a smart city in the world.

During the first day of the summit, urban planners expressed the importance of creating smart cities supported by new projects in transportation, energy, healthcare and construction.

According to a recent research, 70 percent of the world population will be living in the cities until 2050. Such a rapid demographic change has been considered as a significant threat to the world infrastructure.

Over 500 growing cities today have a population of more than 1 million each; there will be 10,000 new cities by 2040.

Speaking about the healthcare services evolving in a mobile system, Ozgur Tugay, the CEO of Acibadem Mobile, told Xinhua that Istanbul is becoming a new hub in this sense.

"Istanbul people want to be more comfortable in getting healthcare service. And also there are very strong mid-level families, and individualization is high in Istanbul," he said, stating the factors that helped Istanbul to become a smart city.

According to the new system people can control their health by themselves by using their mobiles, tablets or computers. Doctors can be connected to their patients' devices for further check up.

During the summit, over 100 city leaders, city development experts, urban service providers and academicians from all around the world will discuss smart thinking and the best practices for implementing the smart cities of tomorrow. The summit is organized by EurAsia Strategies.