Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2018.  Read them in this 10th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.

Contributed by Roei Ganzarski, Chief Executive Officer at BoldIQ

Smart Cities Outlook 2018: Drones, Bots, and On-Demand Services Will Rise to the Occasion

In 2017, technological advancements and the rise of next-generation services have laid the foundation in our way to paving a future full of smart cities. But to ensure this future becomes a reality, adoption of these systematic and efficiency-boosting technologies will need to expand. From drones and delivery bots becoming a reality to the thriving on-demand economy, our society is starting to lean in this direction - with several industry behemoths making strides towards our futuristic vision - but will start to pick up speed in the coming year.

Residents who live in urban areas were 54 percent of the global population in 2014, and this number is expected to increase nearly two percent each year through 2020 (United Nations). In order to accommodate this growth, our cities will need to address traffic issues, new forms of delivery, more efficient services among other direct results of rapid growth. Now, how will our infrastructure support this expansion? These next-gen technologies stand as the only feasible way to make our cities even more ‘smart'.

Roei Ganzarski, Chief Executive Officer at BoldIQ, an asset optimization software company, shares his thoughts on how our smart cities will grow in 2018:

"Between recent discussions by the FAA and White House to build ‘smarter' cities, drones and bots may be coming to your doorstep sooner than you think. While countries like Switzerland and Rwanda have already jumped on the drone delivery bandwagon incorporating networks of drones into several industries like healthcare, the U.S. is starting to fall behind. In the coming year, we can expect to see more companies testing both delivery bots in metro cities that are more heavily populated and drones in rural areas which has less "distractions" when delivering."

"On-demand services, which are the foundation of the gig-economy, include anything from ride sharing to food delivery or laundry services, have become an everyday convenience within our society. However, one aspect far overlooked is that companies in this industry are tapping into the same resources. Just think: every city taps the same pool of drivers for Uber and Lyft and the delivery people for GrubHub and Bite utilize both services to attain more jobs in one day. As more on-demand services enter the scene, the resource pool which they can tap into stays the same - showing that the bubble is sure to collapse at any point if on-demand services don't consolidate via M&A or dissolve all together. In 2018, we'll begin to see a consolidation of companies within each vertical market - those that use their resources better, and offer superior customer service have the most to gain, while others can expect to become obsolete."

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About the Author

Roei Ganzarski is Chief Executive Officer of BoldIQ and is responsible for the overall growth and success of the business managing day-to-day operations while overseeing engineering and development. Before BoldIQ, Roei was with the Boeing family of companies for thirteen years, with his last role as Chief Customer Officer for Boeing's Flight Services division where he was responsible for revenue growth and customer service for all worldwide customer and market-facing organizations. Additionally, Roei led the customer engagement culture transformation for the business. Other key positions at Boeing (including acquired companies Alteon and FSB) included Vice President of Sales, Director of Marketing, Director of New Ventures, and Director of Sales and Business Development for Asia-Pacific.