I know that it takes ages to travel from Narita Airport to the Hilton in central Tokyo, it's no surprise when there are now 38 million people living in Tokyo. And the time it took me to drive out of the centre of Istanbul  (on the way to Gallipoli) to the countryside seemed just as long. Kilometre after kilometre of new suburbs, new factories and bustling activity.

This shows the potential benefits to people of connecting sensors to analyse data and execute decisions to reduce congestion, pollution, energy consumption and make it bearable for residents and visitors.

Some decisions executed automatically, powered by algorithms  and ambient intelligence, and longer term ones by people. Cities are "islands" separated by rural areas and these must also be part of the inter-connected smart areas and nations.

A fact from IBM Ireland- as much as 60% of the data collected begins to lose value within milliseconds of being generated. So it is less about Big Data and more about complete and relevant data. What should be analysed to make what decisions and for what outcomes and why? 

Good to see Dublin, Bristol, York and other cities in the forefront of this as well as the ones you'd expect to be there like Singapore.