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Penmetsa, M.K. Building a Super Smart Nation. Encyclopedia. Available online: https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/20754 (accessed on 17 May 2024).
Penmetsa MK. Building a Super Smart Nation. Encyclopedia. Available at: https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/20754. Accessed May 17, 2024.
Penmetsa, Murali Krishna. "Building a Super Smart Nation" Encyclopedia, https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/20754 (accessed May 17, 2024).
Penmetsa, M.K. (2022, March 18). Building a Super Smart Nation. In Encyclopedia. https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/20754
Penmetsa, Murali Krishna. "Building a Super Smart Nation." Encyclopedia. Web. 18 March, 2022.
Building a Super Smart Nation
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This entry is adapted from the peer-reviewed paper 10.3390/su14052757

Globally, countries are increasingly facing challenges regarding their national future post the COVID-19 pandemic with respect to decreasing and aging populations; dwindling workforces; trade wars due to restricted movement of goods, people, and services; and overcoming economic development and societal problems. 

digital nation smart city smart nation super smart society super smart nation society 5.0 smart society

1. Introduction

Countries across the globe are currently facing new and unprecedented challenges to their national future post the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic crisis is revealing the present strengths and weaknesses of countries’ local governments based on their decisions regarding closing national borders for domestic and international travel, mobilizing the healthcare infrastructure immediately, and integrating and streamlining digital infrastructure. Moreover, nations globally are facing megatrends, such as demographic changes, shifts in global economic power, urbanization, natural resource scarcity, climate change, and technological disruption.
Market research organizations and governmental research bodies try to predict the next election’s outcome, economic growth rates, or futuristic trends for the following years. Furthermore, developed nations, such as Japan, Singapore, Estonia, and countries in the European Union, have started taking radical national transformational steps toward building people-centric super smart societies to overcome future economic development challenges and societal problems and enable free movement of goods, people, and services to facilitate living, doing business, offering public services, and enhancing international cooperation at the national, continental, and global levels. Long-term planning will help nations to forecast future challenges and take radical transformation steps toward facing them, as in the case of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis and the trade wars. Therefore, it is crucial to assess the future growth challenges and the requirements for transforming nations in a sustainable manner that pre-empts future socio-economic developmental and societal problems. To do so, nations must contemplate these issues right now and use the projected figures on the population in 2035, the present population, and the proportion of the population that will retire, among others, to forecast and prepare for the future. Although this information is readily available for national governments, nations fail to take appropriate steps toward long-term planning. Furthermore, achieving this desirable future depends on the futuristic thinking of national leadership, vision, common goals, mission, political stability, stakeholder involvement, and the actions the national governments.
According to the Population Reference Bureau [1], the current world population is 7837 million and is predicted to increase to 8847 million in 2035 and 9688 million in 2050. Furthermore, 19% of Europe’s population is above 65 years, whereas 3% and 9% of African and Asian populations, respectively, are above 65 years. The same segment of the population is also expected to increase in Europe by 2035 and 2050, raising more concerns about the decline in the size of the workforce, increase in social security costs, socio-economic development, and other social problems. Moreover, the percentage of the population aged less than 15 years in Europe is 16%, whereas the global average is 26% (41% in Africa and 24% in Asia), raising concerns about insufficient workforce in the future.
Sustainable development and global transformation are the main targets of the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda to strengthen universal peace—a plan for people, planet, and prosperity. To eliminate global poverty and address the challenges of sustainable development, all countries and stakeholders need to implement this plan through international cooperation. Furthermore, its vision is to ensure global access to the highest quality of education at all levels. Countries around the globe are facing tremendous challenges in areas such as the digital divide, access to digital infrastructure, access to online and mobile technologies, income levels, climate change, and technology when it comes to sustainable development, leading to a rise in inequality within and between countries. However, the advent of information and communication technologies, global interconnectivity, and scientific and technological innovation in a wide range of fields, such as medicine and energy, present tremendous opportunities. It is now easier for people to gain access to education than before. It can accelerate human progress, bridge the digital divide, and develop knowledge societies. All national targets should be formulated in line with global ambition while taking local circumstances into consideration. Sustainable development must be considered in conjunction with other relevant ongoing processes in the economic, social, and environmental spheres.
Furthermore, the revised agenda of the United Nations calls for national policies for sustainable, inclusive, and inclusive economic growth. Moreover, regional and subregional integration, as well as interconnectedness among regional economic zones, are crucial for sustainable development. In the process of achieving sustainable development, each country is confronted with specific challenges. A special emphasis should be given to the most vulnerable countries, including African countries, the least developed countries, landlocked developing countries, and small island developing states. Further, to ensure that no one is left behind, quality education, health, and well-being should be prioritized. To achieve sustainable and inclusive economic growth, which are essential for prosperity, income inequality and wealth sharing should be addressed. Societies must be dynamic, resilient, innovative, and people-centered. Countries need to adopt policies that promote sustainable industrial development; universal access to reliable, affordable, and modern energy services; and high-quality and resilient infrastructure. The implementation plan of each country will determine the country’s economic and social development.
The process of digital transformation [2] has changed drastically since the COVID-19 pandemic began, and various national stakeholders have started to understand the benefits of digitalization. Hence, nations, governments, and lawmakers should shape nations toward building people-centric super smart societies based on the concepts of smart nation and super smart society to improve people’s living standards and boost the economic development of nations. This will ensure that nobody is left behind, that is, with regard to sustainable economic growth, and address future social problems in developed, emerging, and developing nations. However, digitalization in developed, emerging, or developing economies depends on several factors such as the education system, awareness, people and society, technologies, adoption of technology, research and innovation ecosystem, digital infrastructure, political leadership, laws, regulatory frameworks and policies, and proactive measures from government and international cooperation with nations, among others. Furthermore, countries are beset by a myriad of challenges that can be divided into 10 broad categories: people and society, robots, technology, research and innovation, digital infrastructure, data, politics, governance, economics and business, and sustainability.
Additionally, there are three key stakeholders of a smart nation, namely, government, companies, and people, which could be helpful for developing a super smart nation and building a relevant framework by identifying the stakeholders, characteristics, pillars, and challenges for building a more people-centric society. The primary motivation of this study is to construct a robust framework for building a super smart nation to overcome future challenges such as a pandemic crisis; decreasing population and workforce; increasing social security and healthcare costs; and restricted movement of goods, people, and services to boost economic development and solve societal problems. The framework may help people better understand the megatrends, stakeholders, characteristics, pillars, challenges, and rationales that are pivotal to the success of super smart nations globally.

2. Background

A super smart nation is a concept that can be built by analyzing the super smart society [3] and smart nations [4][5]. These concepts can be considered intermediate steps toward building a super smart nation based on centralized and decentralized governance structures. Additionally, super smart nations must adopt the theories developed to create a society that is people-centric and super smart (also called society 5.0).
In addition, Sá et al. [6] state that a super smart society offers technological development to solve social challenges and build a sustainable society. According to Potočan et al. [7], the super smart society vision includes incorporating advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), big data, blockchain, Internet of things, robots, and virtual reality in all industries and social activities to achieve economic development and solve social problems to accomplish the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s). On the one hand, according to Nair et al. [8], a super smart society is a concept whereby nations start to visualize AI and robots taking over human jobs to improve the quality of life of stakeholders [9] and solve challenges that arise from the declining birth rate and workforce as well as the increasing social security costs of healthcare. On the other hand, according to Holroyd [10], nations must co-create super smart societies by involving relevant stakeholders and using advanced technologies, as they do not develop naturally. According to Mavrodieva and Shaw [3], a super smart society’s main characteristics include cities, energy, disaster recovery, healthcare, agriculture, supply chain, manufacturing, finance, insurance, and public services. According to Gurjanov et al. [11], a super smart society comprises health care, social safety, life activity safety, energy, education, comfortable environment, transportation, industry 4.0, and meal provision safety. Furthermore, a smart city is characterized by a smart economy, as well as smart people, smart governance, smart mobility, smart environment, and smart living [12][13][14][15].
A smart nation is a concept in which all urban and rural citizens, governments, and businesses live in a smart society with semi automation, to improve public services, mobility, trade and business, and living standards with high efficiency. It addresses challenges by taking a whole-nation approach for the ease of living, doing business, and availing public services. Furthermore, smart nations are intended to resolve endemic urban problems, such as ageing, energy crises, pollution, safety, and crime using advanced technologies. One way to achieve this is through e-residency, which opens digital borders to anyone, anywhere [14][16][17][18][19][20] through decentralized techno-governance for doing business and smart governance for offering better public services. It enables sustainable development and free movement of work without spatial and geographical barriers. It ensures sustainable development and free movement of workers without spatial or geographical limitations. Further, its mission is to foster innovation in the fields of online governance, cybercrime, and the development of the information society. A smart nation involves the transformation of governance from centralized to decentralized, and smart cities [12][13][14][15] or digital nations can be seen as intermediate steps.
However, this is presently only a feasible solution for developed and less populated nations, such as Singapore, Estonia, and Luxembourg. The Singapore Smart Nation and Digital Government Office views digital government, digital business, and digital society as the building blocks of a smart nation. Furthermore, Estonia can also be considered a smart nation. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Estonia built one of the world’s most advanced smart and information societies, providing services like electronic voting, online education in schools, and electronic government. A defining characteristic of Estonia is its digital identity, accessible services, and secure data exchange via the X-Road, where Estonians retain full ownership of their data. Further, Deloitte reports that Luxembourg is also working towards becoming a smart nation because of its small size, lack of natural resources, and geographical location, in addition to other unique sets of challenges. To maintain its competitive position and address global trends and shifts, it is continuously developing its capabilities and competencies. A key component of Luxembourg’s pursuit of becoming a smart nation is its emphasis on six pillars, namely technology and infrastructure, data, skills, and competencies, innovation culture, and public-private ecosystems.
Smart cities [12][13][14][15] and Digital nations [21] can be seen as intermediate steps toward a smart nation, transforming governance from being centralized towards being more decentralized. Smart cities in smart nations are characterized by six main features: smart economy, smart people, smart governance, smart mobility, smart environment, and smart living. Every citizen, business, and government institution must accelerate digitalization and create smart societies. Moreover, smart cities have faced numerous challenges related to people, technology, politics, governance, economics, and sustainability. Further, IMD-SUTD [22] has developed a Smart city index that measures residents’ perceptions of the available resources in their city, such as structures and technology. Overall, the rankings range from 1 to 118, and they are evaluated in five key areas: health and safety, mobility, activities, opportunities, and governance. Singapore is ranked first, Zurich is second, and Oslo is third on the index. Switzerland had three cities in the top 10, with Lausanne, Geneva, and Zurich ranked 5th, 8th, and 10th, respectively.
The super smart nation comprises the government, companies, and people as its three key stakeholders. In addition, all such innovative solutions require full support, participation, and cooperation from citizens and the international community’s support through dialogue. Therefore, this concept is cogent on participation by all members of society [23]. However, this new concept requires an ecosystem for digital transformation. To execute such plans, it is essential to understand the stakeholders, characteristics, pillars, and challenges relevant to building a nation. A literature review on digital and smart nation helped to identify smart nation’s stakeholders (i.e., government, companies, and people) and characteristics such as smart economy, smart people, smart governance, smart mobility, smart environment, and smart living. 
The three key stakeholders and the above-mentioned characteristics can be considered foundational building blocks for developing a super smart nation, and every citizen, business, government, and public institution (such as universities) plays a vital role in accelerating digitalization and building this new concept. Here, the government should act as a facilitator by creating an environment that engenders more research and innovation along with more investments wherever necessary, bringing all three stakeholders together to create a road map for the rest of the world and create a modern nation through the development of super smart nation concepts.

References

  1. Population Reference Bureau. World Population Data (International Data Indicators). Available online: https://www.prb.org/international/ (accessed on 3 February 2022).
  2. Kamolov, S.; Stepnov, I. Sustainability through digitalization: European strategy. E3S Web Conf. 2020, 208, 03048.
  3. Mavrodieva, A.V.; Shaw, R. Disaster and Climate Change Issues in Japan’s Society 5.0—A Discussion. Sustainability 2020, 12, 1893.
  4. Chia, E.S. Singapore’s smart nation program—Enablers and challenges. In Proceedings of the 11th System of Systems Engineering Conference (SoSE), Kongsberg, Norway, 12–16 June 2016.
  5. Hoe, S.L. Defining a smart nation: The case of Singapore. J. Inf. Commun. Ethics Soc. 2016, 14, 323–333.
  6. Sá, M.; Santos, A.; Serpa, S.; Ferreira, C. Digital Literacy in Digital Society 5.0: Some Challenges. Acad. J. Interdiscip. Stud. 2021, 10, 1.
  7. Potočan, V.; Mulej, M.; Nedelko, Z. Society 5.0: Balancing of Industry 4.0, economic advancement and social problems. Kybernetes 2021, 50, 794–811.
  8. Nair, M.M.; Tyagi, A.K.; Sreenath, N. The future with industry 4.0 at the core of society 5.0: Open issues, future opportunities and challenges. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Computer Communication and Informatics (ICCCI), Coimbatore, India, 27–29 January 2021.
  9. Aldabbas, M.; Xie, X.; Teufel, B.; Teufel, S. Future security challenges for smart societies: Overview from technical and societal perspectives. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Smart Grid and Clean Energy Technologies (ICSGCE), Kuching, Malaysia, 4–7 October 2020.
  10. Holroyd, C. Technological innovation and building a ‘super smart’ society: Japan’s vision of society 5.0. J. Asian Public Policy 2022, 15, 18–31.
  11. Gurjanov, D.; Zakoldaev, A.; Shukalov, I.O.; Zharinov. The smart city technology in the super-intellectual Society 5.0. J. Phys. Conf. Ser. 2020, 1679, 032029.
  12. De Azambuja, L.S.; Pereira, G.V.; Krimmer, R. Clearing the existing fog over the smart sustainable city concept. In Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance, Athens, Greece, 23–25 September 2020.
  13. Orecchini, F.; Santiangeli, A.; Zuccari, F.; Pieroni, A.; Suppa, T. Blockchain Technology in Smart City: A New Opportunity for Smart Environment and Smart Mobility. In Intelligent Computing & Optimization, ICO 2018. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing; Vasant, P., Zelinka, I., Weber, G.W., Eds.; Springer: Cham, Switzerland, 2019; Volume 866, pp. 346–354.
  14. Sharifi, A. critical review of selected smart city assessment tools and indicator sets. J. Clean. Prod. 2019, 233, 1269–1283.
  15. Vasudavan, H.; Balakrishnan, S. The taxonomy of smart city core factors. In Proceedings of the 2019 7th International Conference on Information Technology: IoT and Smart City, Shanghai, China, 20–23 December 2019.
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  19. Rivera, R.; Robledo, J.G.; Larios, V.M.; Avalos, J.M. How digital identity on blockchain can contribute in a smart city environment. In Proceedings of the International Smart Cities Conference (ISC2), Wuxi, China, 14–17 September 2017.
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