Panama City seeks to become a “smart city”

These days, technology seems to control everything that is part of our lives. The use of the internet, together with the technological development of recent times, has allowed many cities around the world, will take advantage of this and so have more control on the part of the authorities to major challenges such as immigration control and the registration of persons, among other things. In Panama, it is intended that the capital will become a technological city, putting technology at the service of citizens.

Gogetit Highlights

* The smart city arose in response to the new urban challenges where public administration needs to lighten the load and, simultaneously, provide better services to meet the needs of citizens.

* To make Panama a smart city, the development of a regulation to harmonize all existing records under a secure and efficient basis to expedite bureaucratic procedures and necessary formalities.

* During the last Summit of the Americas, Cisco and Panama City announced plans to work together in order to make the district capital a smart and connected city.

The technology has allowed for many things today that were once thought impossible to do. An example of this is to serve as a perfect complement of civilian infrastructure, so you can know what is happening in different cities in real time and then interpret the data and provide better service to the public administration.

According to information published by Capital Financiero website, it’s all about trying to put technological development to serve the people. For this, the possibilities for Panama City are endless. On one hand, technology in the prison system would reduce the cost of keeping misdemeanor perpetrators behind bars without losing control of them.

In terms of security, there are applications that allow citizens to monitor traffic, traveling in Metrobus and Subway, so you can decide where to move. According to the General Administrator of the National Authority for Government Innovation (AIG), Irvin Halman, underground fiber optics will allow the capital to become a smart city, because it could give the interoperability and interconnection between different agencies or entities.

The official said that all such applications are part of a smart city and can be implemented with a good network of interconnectivity: “We are working together with the Municipality of Panama, the National Police, the Tourism Authority of Panama (ATP) and others in what has to do with interoperability systems to achieve these goals.”

With the aim of further promoting the development of smart cities in the world, Cisco and the Council of Smart Cities United States (USA), conducted a survey to demonstrate the prospects of the rulers, the challenges they face every day and measures to make cities smarter. The survey highlights that almost a third of respondents identified the desire to improve the infrastructure of the city as a key motivation for starting the implementation of intelligent cities, highlighting how attractive are these cities globally.

In Panama, representatives of Cisco and Mayor Jose Blandón Figueroa, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to establish further steps to formalize this collaboration. Cisco will share global best practices in intelligent cities and along with the District of Panama, identify areas of collaboration with the aim of transforming the experience of citizens through initiatives in the fields of infrastructure, telecommunications and urban services.

Read more information here (Article in Spanish).

Interested in Panama Real Estate? We invite you to visit www.gogetit.com.pa, the fastest, most reliable and social way to find your property in Panama.