When a neighborhood takes the initiative to address these problems, with the aid of technology and efficient contemporary methods, that we have ourselves a smart community. But the going is anything but easy. Residents are passionate in some areas in Abuja, have so long been passionate about smart initiatives such as recycling waste and putting extra spaces to use for the community. Some specific housing estates in specific areas are adequately ready to put their few spaces into use. Although there are so many ideas floating around on how to put these spaces into use for communities. It’s very difficult to convince a large number of people to adopt any kind of method. There are people of different background and getting them involved is a job in itself. A strong public-private partnership is needed to get the communities to adopt smarter means of living, which could help communities do things to better their living conditions if they have the will.

Several private estate developers story turns out to be disappointment. They are often called the model cities and were supposed to be an attractive destination for residents looking for the best facilities. Nothing of the sort happened, as soon people found the usual problems of water shortage, electricity, security, transport and more. But among the housing estates, one home in particular standouts; in this home solar panels are used to supply the energy for the building and the construction material locally sourced and has insulation to retain less heat. The home uses LED lights and has a composter to recycle garbage and even rain harvester. These and other smart city like measures are what can be put in place in housing estates in smaller ways. In estates like that, power is independent from the rest of the city; they use power grids, which is a shared resource and provides backup. Cohesive housing estates that don’t necessarily fall into the elite category can also get together and set up backup power systems. Several independent homes in a housing estate in Abuja are willing to share backup energy, thus exploring whether they can use solar power-the cost of which is reducing now. When energy efficiency is not planned for, however, there can be a shocking waste of resources.

There are many element to a smart community, like greener living, waste management and energy management. GEECI has suggested using smart metering, which would allow people to analyze the consumption and see how energy can be more efficiently utilized. A particular estate in Abuja is exploring initiatives in energy, including renewable, safety and security, and productivity, which is how fast and easily you can move around in the space. Smart communities do not exist in Nigeria. Cisco, which is deeply involved with the Internet of everything- a phrase which the company coined, is ready to engage with several communities to deploy technology for the improvement of living. Three kind of sustainability is needed for smart communities: social, economic, and green. Social relates directly to people having to be in touch with each other, like through video conferencing (one of cisco’s long standing solutions) from residents to community centers. Economic sustainability involves making working space attractive for users, and giving them facilities. Green sustainability involves variety of measures from using bicycles to managing energy better.

As cities get more crowded, people will have to move into self-sustained communities, which cannot be self-sufficient if they aren’t planned to be so. If the government were to help enable solutions from the start, it would be possible to deliver certain services in health–care and say something like passport services, straight to the home. But existing communities can also leverage technology, which can at times be quite simple. Like using an app assist in better traffic management and parking, calling for doctors finding out what is happening in the community and so on. Clearly, the definition of a smart community today is limited only by what the residents themselves want to take up, even in the absence of measures which should been built-in from the start.