The Internet of things (IoT) can be viewed as a global infrastructure for the information society, enabling advanced services by interconnecting physical and virtual things based on existing and evolving interoperable ICTs. Through the exploitation of identification, data capture, processing and communication capabilities, the IoT makes full use of things to offer services to all kinds of applications, whilst ensuring that security and privacy requirements are fulfilled. From a broader perspective, the IoT can be perceived as a vision with technological and societal implications. The IoT adds the dimension “Any THING communication” to ICTs which already provide “any TIME” and “any PLACE” communication.

In reality, it is not a new idea to collect data and analyze them, but in the past, only large organizations with abundance of resources possessed the capacity for implementation. Given the advancement and price reduction of peripheral items and environment, the IoT market has been “democratized” since around 2010, and a number of actors have joined the market. According to McKinsey’s report, by 2025 the IoT has a total potential economic impact of $3.9 trillion to $11.1 trillion a year. At the top end, that level of value—including the consumer surplus—would be equivalent to about 11 percent of the world economy. The same report also pointed out that IoT has a large potential in developing economies, which could generate nearly 40 percent of the IoT’s value.

Data Analytics is an integral part of the IoT. Data accumulated by IoT sensors and devices are supposed to be thoroughly processed and analyzed with data analytics tools and methodologies. The outputs of that analysis should then be brought back to the IoT arena and be utilized to offer convenient public services, improve citizens’ lives, etc.

There are three types of communications for IoT.

• Person-to-person (P2P)
• Machine-to-person (M2P)
• Machine-to-Machine (M2M)

The following are key examples of IoT’s actual utilization

• Smart homes
• Customization and control of home environments for increased security and efficient energy management
• Wearables
• Health care, fitness, entertainment, etc
• Smart cities (incl. Transport, Energy, Water
• Smart surveillance, safer and automated transportation, street light control, smart energy management systems, smart water sensors and systems
• Deliver impacts on reduction of greenhouse gas emission, climate change
• Agriculture
• Monitoring of critical information (temperature, soil condition, etc.) for better harvest forecast and production
• Retail business
• Tracking, real-time inventory information exchange, automated delivery, proximity-based advertising

IoT generally has the following four components:

• Sensors and devices
• Connectivity to cloud (telecommunications infrastructure, mostly broadband wireless)
• Data Analytics
• User interface

Data analytics (DA) is the process of examining datasets in order to draw conclusions about the information they contain, increasingly with the aid of specialized systems and software. DA allows public sector organizations to make complex decision-making, improve their operations, engage citizens effectively, and provide better public services at lower cost. As mentioned in Section 1, DA is an integral part of IoT. Given that IoT sensors and devices generate continuous data, DA for IoT is usually dynamic and real-time.

Actually, there is significant overlap between IoT and DA. Other than IoT-related applications, DA can offer the following major applications:

• Transport
• Transport infrastructure design and maintenance
• Asset management
• Convenient services to public
• Weather patterns
• Disaster preparedness for floods and hurricanes
• Long-term crop forecasts
• Social services
• Improvement of operation efficiencies
• Fraud reduction
• Regulatory compliance
• Taxation
• Prevention of fraud and error
• Health services
• Assessment of healthcare needs
• Predict disease (ex. flu) outbreaks and track disease patterns
• Law enforcement
• Analysis of crime trends for public security

• Data collection, storage, and transmission
• Data Analytics (process, calculation, analysis)
• Establishment of government datacenters or effective utilization of cloud computing for cost-efficiency and scalability
• Appropriate selection of analytics tools and methodologies (algorithms), many of which are now available on public cloud services
• Connection to other datasets (public data, enterprise data such as customer information, etc.), to deliver bigger impacts

The abovementioned DA serves as foundation for Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI is the simulation of human intelligence processes by machines, especially computer systems. These processes include learning (the acquisition of information and rules for using the information), reasoning (using the rules to reach approximate or definite conclusions), and self-correction. The benefits of AI include

• Cost reduction
• Enhancement of service efficiency and reach
• Optimal workload allocation (especially reduction of simple paperwork)

There are two types of learning process. Machine Learning (ML) is one subfield of AI. Its core principle is that machines take data and “learn” for themselves. Deep Learning (DL) is a subset of ML. It uses some ML techniques to solve real-world problems by tapping into neural networks that simulate human decision-making. DL can be expensive, and requires massive datasets to train itself on.

Types of AI’s that can be used in the public sector are:

• Rules-based systems
• Capture and use experts’ knowledge to provide answers to tricky but routine problems
• Speech recognition
• Transcribes human speech automatically and accurately
• Machine translation
• Translates text or speech from one language to another
• Computer vision
• Identify objects, scenes, and activities in naturally occurring images
• Robotics
• Natural language processing
• Understand human speech as it is spoken (not in in a programming language that is precise and highly structured

• Connectivity to cloud (telecommunications infrastructure; broadband wireless or NFC), if not locally hosted
• Data collection, storage, and transmission
• Data Analytics (process, calculation, analysis)
• Establishment of government datacenters or effective utilization of cloud computing for cost-efficiency and scalability
• Appropriate selection of analytics tools and methodologies (algorithms), many of which are now available on public cloud services
• Connection to other datasets (public data, enterprise data such as customer information, etc.), to deliver bigger impacts

VR is a computer simulated reality in which a user can interact with replicated real or imaginary environments. The experience is totally immersive by means of visual, auditive and haptic (touch) stimulation so the constructed reality is almost indistinguishable from the real deal. While VR completely immerses the user in a simulated reality, AR blends the virtual and real. Like VR, an AR experience typically involves some sort of goggles through which you can view a physical reality whose elements are augmented (or supplemented) by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data. In AR, the real and the non-real or virtual can be easily told apart. The line between VR and AR is actually blurring, as developers push the boundaries of the technology.

Types of VR and AR that can be used in the public sector are, inter alia,

• Provision of lively and easy-to-understand visual guidance
• For civil workers
• For citizens who receive services at a city hall
• For DRM purposes (in disaster relief situations)
• For tourists (at tourist spots, museums)
• Automatic translation
• Replace the foreign text with the text translated to a different language in near real time (wireless internet connection permitting); effective guidance especially for tourists
• Education
• Efficient and engaging learning experiences
• Professional training
• Health
• Rehabilitation (ex. recovery of a sense of equilibrium)

• Connectivity to cloud (telecommunications infrastructure; broadband wireless or NFC)
• OS for VR/AR devices
• VR/AR devices (i.e. goggles)

Robots generally possess the following three features.

• is based on sensoring technologies
• possess self-decision making capability (can be remote-brain)
• possess mobility

Robots can work easily in places too dangerous for humans, and they can perform repetitious, mind-numbing tasks more efficiently than humans. In conjunction with the advent of AI, Robotics has nowadays been applied to produce not only industry robots, but also service robots. It should be also noted that robots are to be used both in a complementary manner (robotics helping humans) and in a substitutive way (robots replacing humans).

Major application and utilization of robotics are, inter alia,

• Logistics, civil engineering work
• Autonomous vehicles, home delivery
• Loading and unloading, piece picking in warehouse
• Automated maintenance
• General civil services
• Receptionist, guidance provision
• Cleaning
• Health services
• Provision of physical labor or power assist to the old and the handicapped
• Special purpose robots
• Rescue, disaster relief
• Automated surveillance

• Connectivity to cloud (telecommunications infrastructure; broadband wireless or NFC), if robots need real-time control or have a remote-brain
• OS for robots
• High-speed charging stations and large capacity batteries

Drones are more formally known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or unmanned aircraft systems (UASes), which are aircrafts without a human pilot aboard. Essentially, drones is a flying robots. Drones were originally developed for sensitive and complex military operations. They are now also used in a wide range of civilian roles ranging from search and rescue, surveillance, traffic monitoring, weather monitoring and firefighting to personal drones and business drone-based photography, as well as videography, agriculture and even delivery services.

The benefits of resorting to drones in development projects include:

• Consistently lower operational costs
• In project areas, lower operational risk to development workers, local residents, and infrastructure
• Quicker, more efficient planning and implementation of projects
• Higher quality data available in larger quantities
• More flexible, affordable verification tools

The use of civilian drones in development projects is expanding quickly. The following is examples of drone technology utilization.

• Land administration
• Risk assessment
• Forestry management
• Urban planning
• Coastal zone management
• Infrastructure monitoring
• Post-disaster damage assessment
• Delivery of medical supplies
• Search and rescue
• Firefighting (urban and forest fires)
• Radiological, atmospheric, and environmental sensing
• Agriculture (data collection and crop management)
• Internet connectivity in rural and remote areas (through a perpetually airborne network of UAVs)
• Meteorology (re-usable airborne weather sensors mounted on UAVs could be a lot more efficient that the disposable balloon equipment used today)
• Humanitarian operations
• Natural resources conservation and management

• Connectivity to cloud (telecommunications infrastructure; broadband wireless or NFC), if videos shot by drones need real-time upload
• High-speed charging stations and large capacity batteries

Blockchain is a decentralized ledger of all transactions across a peer-to-peer network. Using this technology, participants can confirm transactions without the need for a central certifying authority. The technology enables the existence of cryptocurrency (among other things)—Bitcoin is the name of the best-known cryptocurrency, the one for which blockchain technology was invented. Bitcoin offers one particular application of blockchain technology, a peer to peer electronic cash system that enables online Bitcoin payments.

Ethereum, initially released in Jul 2015, is an open software platform based on blockchain technology that enables developers to build and deploy decentralized applications. While the Bitcoin blockchain is used to track ownership of digital currency (bitcoins), the Ethereum blockchain focuses on running the programming code of any decentralized application. Ethereum and similar platforms such as Hyperledger have been rapidly evolved into an enterprise-grade technology and its open industry standards has been rigorously explored.

Benefits of blockchain include:

• Increased transparency
• Accountable tracking
• Permanent ledger
• Cost reduction
• No downtime

The benefits of blockchain technology for the public sector are threefold.

• Significant administrative simplification
• through the redesign of administrative processes, which typically involve numerous parties and often one or several intermediaries
• based on the concept of shared information
• Remove the need to reply on an intermediary (ex. banks) to generate trust between parties
• enables to focus on their role: adding value for their clients
• Greater efficiency
• through the use of integrated smart contracts
• Nearly impossible to commit fraud, delete or alter previously registered transactions
• transactions are secured by means of cryptography and is stored on all the different nodes in the network

There are a number of blockchain tools and technologies that government agencies can implement.

• Managing data and digital assets
• Protection of critical data
• Know-Your-Customer (KYC) function
• Clearing and settlement
• Notarization, digital property ownership (ex. land administration, intellectual property)
• Smart incorporation
• Building networked public services
• Establishment of an environment in which data can easily be shared across systems, but in which individuals and organizations can take back ownership of their data and control the flow of personal information
• Election
• Ensure that each eligible person uses only one vote
• Smart contracts
• Computer program code that is capable of facilitating, executing, and enforcing the negotiation or performance of an agreement (i.e. contract) using blockchain technology , while avoiding services of a middleman. It defines the conditions on which all parties using contract agrees and certain actions described in the contract can be executed if the required conditions are met .
• Sharing economy
• Crowdfunding
• Supply chain auditing

Public blockchains:

• Nodes that offer calculation power. Usually at data centers, etc, which require significant amount of electricity
• Connectivity to blockchain API (telecommunications infrastructure, mostly secured leased circuits)

• Computer
• Connectivity to blockchain API (broadband access)

Permissioned (closed) blockchains:

• Highly secured network and nodes

• Crypto modules, encryption on data storage, transfer visibility of data between network participants

• Provision of Consensus, the heart of blockchain technology, to ensure transactional traceability

3-D printing is a manufacturing process that builds layers to create a three-dimensional solid object from a digital model. In the past, the cost of 3-D printing was expensive and the technology was only used by large corporations, but the development of desktop 3-D printers has made the technology more accessible to small and mid-sized businesses and home users. Today, 3-D printers are used to create anything from a new toy or motorcycle part to manufacturing prototypes for testing purposes . 3-D printing can generate impact in terms of cost, lead time, and design flexibility.

3-D printing is utilized principally for manufacturing. Its applications include:

• Prototyping
• Assist business of SME, start-ups
• Low volume production and tooling
• Suitable for customized and tailored product (vs. molding for mass-production): customized prosthetics and medical devices
• Creation of products closer to point-of-use
• New value proposition for reginal/local logistic network
• Reduce transportation cost

• 3-D printing machines

In the absence of a strong civil registry system (such as for birth, death, or marriages) in developing countries, biometrics offers a possible technology to uniquely identify individuals. Biometrics are characteristics of the human body that can be used as attributes to establish personal identity. Biometric systems begin with patterns, such as fingerprints, iris texture, and face geometry, imaged via specialized sensors, additional forms of biometrics have emerged in recent years, including voice prints, retinal scans, vein patterns, and DNA .

Identification can be a critical enabler for achieving some key development outcomes including:

• Financial inclusion
• Gender equality
• Access to health services
• Social safety net
• Improved governance

Major examples of biometrics utilization in the public sector include:

• Digital identity (eID) platform
• Cross-sector platform on which to establish a robust identification system in a country, on a rapid timetable, and enables services across sectors to be delivered electronically
• Law enforcement
• Identification platform for law enforcement purpose

• For National identity registry
• Biometric data capture equipment – fingerprint scanners, retina scanners etc.
• Datacenters for storage of data (including redundancy)
• For Mobile, online, and offline applications
• Services can be delivered on a computer, a mobile phone, or a POS device for a range of sectors with digital identity