Introduction
A smart city is one that uses information and communication technologies with the aim of increasing operational efficiency, sharing information with the public, and improving not only the quality of government services, but also the citizens' well-being. Its mission is to optimize city functions which in turn drive economic growth which results in improving the citizens' quality of life by using smart technology. Hence, raising awareness of the benefits of building a smart city should be promoted and implemented globally.
IEREK organizes the 7th international conference on "Future Smart Cities" where a huge number of researchers and stakeholders are able to discuss how building smart cities foster sustainability and what are the challenges and concerns that should be considered while investing in the services and infrastructure supporting the city to be more livable.
The term ‘smart city’ is given to a city that integrates both information and communication technologies (ICT) in order to boost the quality and performance of urban services which include energy, transportation and utilities. Hence, reducing resource consumption, wastage, and overall costs in general. To sum it up, the main aim of a smart city is to enhance the quality of living for its citizens through smart technology. Proposals and researches, therefore, are requested to discuss the new proposals of future cities, as well as the transformation of our cities to be in the scope.
Decision makers, citizens, researchers, universities, companies and planners are all invited to discuss this theme further and to maximize the benefits of the conference and get a successful proposal to the future smart city.
Selected papers from this conference will be published in the journal “Smart and Sustainable Environment”, published by Emerald Publishing. The journal is indexed in Scopus, which is a partner of Clarivate Analytics. Others will be published in the ARChive journal by IEREK Press.