As the Digital Strategy Lead within the Smart Places group, Will helped the client, a regional property developer, embrace digitisation to improve the performance of built assets and enhance the human condition for the City’s future citizens.  

According to Will, a good smart city strategy focuses on identifying how digital and data can improve the quality-of-life metrics of a city, such as environmental factors, safety and accessibility of city services, while navigating consequential topics such as data privacy and cyber security. Will believes this is best achieved through a human-centric approach, which prioritises solutions and recommendations based on the specific challenges and context of a place and its citizens.

The Smart City in the Middle East will be true convergence of digital and physical worlds for the benefit of the people who will live there, from families to the elderly to students and young professionals. Through the Smart City Strategy that Will led, citizens of the new community will benefit from seamless access to critical services such as healthcare, education and leisure, forming the basis of a healthy and sustainable city life. By underpinning its development with a future-proofed technology architecture, built on principles of security, privacy and interoperability, Will’s work truly will last the test of time.

For more information on the work Will and the Smart Places team does, visit

https://smart-cities.wsp.com/