Preface Scout 2023

With the extensive digitization of various sectors and advancements in information and communicationtechnology (ICT), smart city missions have received much attention in the last two decades. In developingcountries, accelerated growth in urbanization has been noted. Moreover, due to the rapid growth of largecities, large numbers of people are rapidly moving to urban areas, which contributes to the populationgrowth in these areas. Although the growth of urbanization plays a significant role in economic growth, ifnot well planned and managed, it can lead to chaos. Thus, proper planning and management is necessarywhen transforming urban areas to realize smart city missions. Due to this unprecedented shift in migratingpopulation growth, increasing demands on basic services pose many challenges for the development ofsmart cities.