The impact of the brics’ universities on internationalization of smart cities technologies

Abstract

Within the past decade, the increased use of technology in all sectors of society has created a push for cities to integrate the latest and greatest into their city development economically, socially and politically. As cities gain greater control over their development and progression into the 21st cen-tury, they face a range of challenges and threats to sustainability in a varie-ty of ways. At the same time higher education institutions have a unique role in ensur-ing sustainable and smart development of the regions, since the list of their commitments include promotion of responsible knowledge and practice. The smart city is a complex and aspirational concept that is quickly shap-ing how we reimagine urban centers, especially in light of global trends (population growth, urbanization, climate change) and rapid innovation development. We live in an age of tremendous progress and many cities in emerging markets are leapfrogging old technologies and practices to im-plement faster, cheaper and more sustainable infrastructure and programs. In this paper we would like to look at smart city initiatives and technolo-gies developed and disseminated by the BRICS countries universities. We have conducted case study analysis in order to consider several exam-ples of smart city initiatives of HEIs from the sample.