AppFusions: Connected Smart Cities

A recent report by Gartner on smart city stated, around 30 percent of smart city initiatives will become obsolete due to the lack of data analysis and integrated services by the year 2023. Although startling, such a prediction highlights the current challenges prevailing in the smart city landscape. As organizations lack single unified platform, CIOs are struggling to pull together data from disparate sources under one umbrella and present it in a seamless manner for internal or external users. “To overcome this issue, CIOs need to leverage data and technology wisely, and implement programs that bridge the gaps – integrating their currently siloed data and processes – to promote community engagement, make citizens’ lives better, and most importantly, boost economic development and growth,” begins Patrick Spedding, APAC Regional Director at AppFusions.

AppFusions, a pioneer in smart city solutions is on a mission to help organizations build a better digital experience for its smart city initiatives with its enterprise-grade, cloud-native, multi-tenant, mobileready, multi-cloud deployable solutions. The company’s forte lies in bringing together cloud or on-premise systems/applications, people, data, and processes into one place, or metaphorically, a “single piece of glass”.

The firm integrates siloed smart city data via its flagship product, AlohaCloud, which provides multi-persona dynamic, real-time collaborative digital experiences to its users. The AlohaCloud platform drives measureable business outcome, inherently enabling CIOs to arrive at an evidence-based decisions regarding their smart city initiatives. “In the current environment of fake news and alternative facts, it is ever important for smart cities initiatives to be accountable, measurable, and auditable to complement any decision made,” states Spedding. Most importantly, the AlohaCloud platform benefits and engages the employees, customers, suppliers and partners, as well as extensibility developers to drive enterprise-level digital transformation. AlohaCloud also incorporates a distributed ledger for secure, authenticated data transfer and searchable encryption.

At the core of AlohaCloud platform is the AppSpokes framework, developed by AppFusions. The AppSpokes framework resolves interface and interoperability issues related to legacy systems and unites internal enterprise applications with AlohaCloud platform. By utilizing the AppSpokes technology, AppFusions embeds modern integration models, patterning, and extensibility strategies for the distinct needs of various applications used in smart cities initiatives. For instance, a smart city initiative may involve employing a growing farm of different purpose-based “green”-offerings (i.e., battery and solarbased offerings), all of which now have unique consoles. Managing the many systems independently is an enormous IT administration headache without a holistic multi-vendor strategy. AppSpokes with AlohaCloud collates and aggregates the organizations’ key tasks, metrics, and functional requirements into a single place that can be accessed uniquely per different roles or personas.

Another major challenge addressed by AppFusions is around accessibility and social inclusivity. AlohaCloud embeds its AppSpokes technology to provide integrated accessibility to citizens who lack the knowledge and resources to access necessary technology and data. “The accessibility factor enables the old-generation individuals and external public to understand the smart cities’ operations and allows them to interact with smart city services effectively,” says Spedding.