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Digital Twins – the ultimate tool for resilient African cities

igital twins help organisations world’s 100 fastest-growing cities are at “extreme risk” from the impacts of a warming
– including local and national planet, including 79 in Africa.
Dgovernments – realise value from Digital twins, however, cannot be used in isolation because the challenges faced in
their assets and improve service delivery an urban environment are intertwined and managing them is a multi-disciplinary and
to their citizens and stakeholders. multi-stakeholder exercise. The City of Johannesburg’s Smart City executives noted that its
This was the core message emerging own vision for the future would be most likely to succeed if data about the city’s various
from the recent Co-create My City Digital elements could be shared between departments to achieve a collaborative result, which
Twins Masterclass, an initiative of the would be to the benefit of its citizens.
Kingdom of the Netherlands in South Doing so could, for example, predict flooding along the banks of the Jukskei River,
Africa, capturing the true essence of allowing authorities to evacuate Alexandra’s riverside residents ahead of extreme weather
modern foreign diplomacy. events, or it could help the Johannesburg Roads Agency manage traffic more effectively
Speakers included the Netherlands’ during storms, or around large sporting or entertainment events. The more smoothly the
ambassador to South Africa, Han traffic flows, the more productive the city is, and the more people can be sustained with
Peters, representatives from the City of existing infrastructure. Smoother flowing traffic also means less carbon emissions, which
Johannesburg’s Smart City programme, leads to improved air quality.
experts from the University of Pretoria, Data is everywhere and must be used as the foundation for South African cities to begin
various Digital Twin experts from the journey to becoming smarter and more inclusive. Next steps require using various
the Netherlands and South Africa, technologies that flow into and support one another, creating an excellent platform to
including from Royal HaskoningDHV, an leverage digital twinning, data science and data analytics to make positive impacts in the
international engineering consultancy physical world.
with a 99-year history in South Africa. Cities envisioning the possibilities that digital twins could bring to reality can turn to the
Driven by data, a digital twin is a growing body of knowledge and expertise on the subject, including academic researchers at
virtual mirror of a real-world asset, the University of Pretoria, and the teams of established and experienced experts at global
process or even an entire system, like a engineering practices like Royal HaskoningDHV.
supply chain or city. This mirror provides “Digital transformation comes with challenges and opportunities. The concept of digital
insight into how that asset behaves under twins is promising because it can help to make life better for all of us, be it by means of
a variety of simulated conditions, helping better traffic management or through identifying crime hotspots. For this we need to bring
to improve decision-making and optimise all stakeholders together, both from the Netherlands and from South Africa,” said the
business processes. Netherlands’ ambassador to South Africa, Han Peters.
“Digital twins have the potential to “There are so many strong skills sets in our universities, but contextual experience lies
radically transform the way we think within government entities, and these collaborations could foster further learning while
and operate as a society—providing solving problems on the ground and preparing South Africans for a more resilient future,”
the insight and agility needed to he added.
turn reactive decision making into
proactive problem solving,” explained
Tjeerd Driessen, director of business
development resilience – Africa, at Royal
HaskoningDHV.
“African cities face huge challenges in
adapting to climate change and dealing
with large urbanisation rates. A digital
twin could assist cities to better manage
floods and drought, and create valuable
insights for mobility, water supply,
disaster risk management, industrial
supply chains and urban planning,” he
added.
This is particularly important when
considering that Africa is in the eye of the
storm of climate change. Even though the
continent contributes the least to global
warming, research shows that 84 of the

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