Smart Asia: A new platform for collective intelligence

Abstract

Asia today is experiencing unprecedented urban growth and development, fast becoming the world's leading consumer of the planet's natural resources, and is now at the tipping point of becoming unsustainable. North America and Europe have finally begun to slow this negative trend through the use of sustainable practices and social innovation models supported by advanced technologies. It is critical for Asia to follow suit by developing environmentally safe solutions for growth, following the best practices from countries around the world. To be successful, this will require willing collaboration by public and private organizations, sharing information on demographics, health, food, water, weather, transportation, and other key urban indices. By developing a virtual framework combining an open-source operating system and collaborative interface we term Collective Intelligence, the goal is to build a Smart Asia platform capable of providing a holistic solution to meet both human quality of life needs and the sustainability of the natural environment. © 2014 Springer International Publishing.