The Home of the Future: Digitalization and Resource Management

This book presents an in-depth study to show that a sustainable future urban life is possible. To build a safer and more sustainable future, as humankind, we would like to use more renewable energy, increase energy efficiency, reduce our carbon and water footprints in all economic sectors. The increasing population and humans’ ever-increasing demand for consumption pose another question whether the world’s resources are sufficient for present and future generations. Fair access to water, energy, and food is the objective for all. In line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, scientists, researchers, engineers, and policymakers worldwide are working hard to achieve these objectives.

To answer all these challenges, we would like to introduce the core of Smart Cities of the future, the building block of the future’s urban life: Open Digital Innovation Hub (ODIH). ODIH will serve as the ‘Home of the Future’, a fully digitalised and smart, self-sustaining building that answers all the motivation we highlight here. In ODIH, we introduce a living space that produces its water, energy, and food by minimising carbon and water footprints thanks to the Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, and Blockchain technologies. It will also serve as an open innovation environment for start-ups and entrepreneurs who wish to integrate their solutions into the infrastructure of ODIH and test those in real-time. We believe this will be a true open innovation test-bed for new business models.

Dr. Sinan Küfeoglu is a Research Associate at the Cambridge Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom. He is also working as the International Outstanding Research Fellow at the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey on his project Digitalisation in Energy Sector: Digital Solutions and New Business Models. He is an adviser at the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), CIFAL Istanbul, for integrating United Nations Sustainable Development Goals into university education.

Dr. Küfeoglu completed his D.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Electrical Engineering at Aalto University, Finland in 2015 and 2011 respectively. He got his B.Sc. degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering Department from Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey in 2009. His research interests include energy futures, sustainable development, energy economics and technology policy.