SOAPBOX


Could Breeding A ‘Digital Twin’ Save Our ‘Dying’ Cities?


This glimpse of the future was crafted by: Matt Coetzee and Jacob Lindsay


In the controversial novel ‘My Sister’s Keeper’, parents conceive a ‘saviour sibling’ for the sole purpose of producing compatible organs and blood that will save their firstborn from a fatal disease. However disturbing this may sound, our cities are sick – very sick. Under strain from urbanisation, pollution, climate challenges and poor governance, could a ‘saviour sibling’ be a remedy for our sick cities? Could an ill, dysfunctional city be ‘treated’ through the creation of a ‘digital twin’ as a test bed to prototype urban ideas in a low-risk environment?


Testing the twin


A digital twin is a virtual model of a city; a digital model of the physical world. Digital twins can be developed for a range of ‘applications’ such as products, buildings, a process, factories, cities, and even people. But the real value lies in the potential of a digital twin to save its real-life ‘sibling’. If we created a ‘digital twin’ of our existing cities, could we


contemplate ways to improve them; apply those improvements in the digital version and then track the responses? The opportunity would then exist, of course, to carry these lessons over to ‘real world’ applications so that our reality would be made more resilient, more responsive, and less exposed to physical, social and economic challenges.


The birth of digital twins is on the increase...


Digital twin technology was ranked Number 5 in Gartner’s Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2018, with predictions that


Matt-Coetzee Jacob-Lindsay


billions of things will have digital twins in the next few years. NASA was using digital twin technology for decades before the term ‘digital twin’ was coined. They use virtual models to develop and maintain systems they can’t physically monitor in space, including running complex simulations of spacecraft responses. What it offers are dynamic, rapid, low-risk, real-time diagnostic and problem-solving capabilities. Driving the growing application of the digital twin concept in


cities will be an enormous number of interconnected Internet of Things devices with real-time, cost-effective data feeds. A surprising number of everyday devices are already connected Continued on page 15


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