Rapid urbanisation, changing demands around service delivery by citizens and heightened awareness about issues like climate change and sustainability demand that the public service look at new ways to manage all aspects of their operations. Implementing new technology across different sectors can address many of the challenges, especially the implementation of Internet of Things (IoT) solutions.

A survey of nearly 800 public service technology professionals across nine countries by Accenture, found that when the priority is improving citizen satisfaction, officials chose more-emergent technologies such as video analytics, biometrics, machine learning and IoT. “Emerging technologies are proving to have tremendous potential value for enabling public service agencies to not only meet their key internal resource challenges, but also provide innovative approaches to address the evolving needs of their citizens,” according to the Accenture report.

IoT for the public sector is the theme for the last of IoT.nxt’s current webinar series to explore new solutions and present projects already implemented. Speakers Rich Nkambule, Customer Success Manager at IoT.nxt and Xolani Zuma, CEO of provider of integrated technology and enterprise management solutions Advannotech will discuss this important topic at 15:30 (CAT) on 3 June 2021.

According to Nkambule IoT is rapidly being deployed by government agencies to assist in overcoming long-standing inefficiencies, including regulatory compliance and outdated legacy IT systems.

An example of this is a project IoT.nxt rolled out at the start of the year at a district municipality in a rural area of South Africa. It provides the municipality with a real time view of its water infrastructure. Faulty meters and accurate consumption are now monitored, maintenance teams receive instant alerts via email or SMS about faults, and corrective action can be taken in a very short time frame. Alerts include the GPS location of the meter, its status, flow rates consumption, and potential leaks

Registration page for the event: Public sector webinar.