At NSI Advisory Services, we use proven methods to help you select, customize, and implement smart city technology. There are so many options to improve your city; let us help you move with confidence and collaboration into the next right option for you.
NSI Advisory Services has learned over more than 20 years that major infrastructure projects must have goals that respond to citizen and commusnity stakeholder needs and expectations. Most of these expections are focused on quality of life within the community and not necessarily on technology. Our Smart Cities approach integrates 9 Fundamental Human Needs (Manfred Max-Neef et al, 1986) into our work to deliver socially robust and impact-oriented outcomes for our partners who are committed to addressing complex sustainability challenges. The original article provides an indepth discussion of how these needs were identified and later solidified into a process approach: "Human Scale Development" - Max-Neef et al. Core to our success, we also use existing Systems Engineering tools overlapped with quality of life metrics to help communities and organizations focus on what matters most for them as well as to implement processes for continuously monitoring and improving these processes and commensurate results.
Each city has a unique mission that reflects its people, opportunities, and culture. We believe focusing on nine basic human needs offers a clear, human-centered way to approach city planning and decision-making, always prioritizing the residents' best interests. As the city's mission aligns with these needs, we can identify the goals and objectives needed to achieve it—many of which already exist. Our value lies in helping to connect these goals with city departments and non-governmental organizations, identifying opportunities for collaboration that lead to achieving the mission.
We link the city's mission, goals, and objectives to specific metrics. Achieving these metrics often requires cooperation between city teams and non-governmental organizations. For example, responsive emergency services depend on a functional transportation network that allows first responders to reach locations quickly. By connecting these teams, both can make better decisions that support each other. This also helps justify the use of smart technologies, like emergency signal preemption. These connections, as part of the NSI process, ensure new technologies provide maximum benefits and align with the city's mission.
A big challenge in creating a strong community is identifying the teams involved and how they work together to reach the city's goals. Achieving these goals usually requires both government and non-government groups, but it's hard to define and manage their responsibilities and coordination. This is where the NSI process helps. We identify the key connections between teams and guide them on how to collaborate effectively to achieve the goals.
We start with your mission, build consensus, and create a shared vision. At the heart of this work are nine Fundamental Human Needs (FHN) as defined by Max Neef (1989). We connect your mission through the FHN and trace how city services support these needs. The result is a clear path of what you want to achieve and how it can be done.
