This evening I attended an event where the main topic was building smart cities. One of the key takeaways was that in order to achieve the goal of building something as ambitious, complex, and expensive as a smart city, you need partnerships. Specifically what's known as public-private partnerships (PPP).
Essentially these type of partnerships allow massive government infrastructure projects, which often have limited budgets, to get funding from the private sector. Two different worlds coming together to innovate and build something they likely couldn't achieve alone easily.
While not without challenges (and controversies), some of the upsides include a distribution of risks, improved operational efficiencies, and increased speed of delivery.
If these partnerships can happen at this large a scale, they can certainly be achieved at a much smaller one. You can, of course, choose to go at it alone. However, to achieve certain goals that require more resources than you can possibly supply yourself, collaborations that bring the best of both worlds can bring numerous benefits for all the players and stakeholders involved.
