Serbian Government preparing infrastructure for the development of smart cities and municipalities

Jovanović said on that occasion that the Government of Serbia is ready to respond to the challenges posed by the concept of smart cities and that intensive work is being done to build the necessary infrastructure.

 “The technical preconditions for collecting, processing and analysing large amounts of data within the future solutions of smart cities and municipalities will be provided for by the construction of the State Data Centre in Kragujevac and the full implementation of the eGovernment Unified Information and Communication Network, as well as its integration with other state networks. The capacities of the State Data Centre in Kragujevac are such that there is enough space for equipment and data of both state bodies and local self-government units. The eGovernment Unified ICT Network has already linked all local self-government units for the implementation of the Unified Information System of all Local Tax Administrations Project, while more and more municipalities and cities are opening their data on the National Open Data Portal. The data within the smart cities system must be in an open format so that all interested parties, primarily the state, companies, entrepreneurs and the scientific community can use and intersect it freely, and create new value for citizens and the economy”, said Jovanović.

Considering that the Government of the Republic of Serbia has just formed the Working Group for the drafting of the Strategy of the Republic of Serbia for the Development of Artificial Intelligence for the period 2020 - 2025, it should be expected that one of the goals of this strategy is to provide an artificial intelligence platform on the eGovernment infrastructure, which would further contribute to faster and more efficient development of smart cities and municipalities, Jovanović added.

After the panel, Mihailo Jovanović (Associate Professor, PhD), Director of the Office for IT and eGovernment, and Francine Pickup, UNDP Resident Representative in Serbia, presented awards to the cities of Niš, Priboj, Kragujevac and Šabac, who opened their data and made it available to the public for further use.