The Internet of Everything (IoE) for African Smart Cities

Abstract

The concept of the Internet of Everything (IoE) extends beyond IoT by intelligently connecting people, processes, data, and things. For a rapidly urbanizing city like Accra, IoE presents an opportunity to leapfrog legacy infrastructure and build a truly responsive, efficient, and resilient urban environment. However, this requires a unified framework to manage the immense and heterogeneous data streams. This Masters in Computer Science proposal focuses on designing a scalable, decentralized data architecture for a city-wide IoE platform in Accra. The research will address the core challenges of data interoperability, security, and privacy, using a critical use case: integrated traffic and public transport management.

Key Research Questions for IoE in Ghana

1. Decentralized Data Architecture: How can we design a data architecture that avoids a single point of failure and respects data sovereignty? This research will explore a federated architecture using edge computing, where data from different sources (e.g., public transport, traffic sensors, user apps) is processed locally, with only anonymized metadata shared to a central coordination layer.
2. Semantic Interoperability: How can we enable seamless communication between diverse systems from different manufacturers and agencies? This involves developing a unified "Smart City" ontology for Ghana, a formal vocabulary that defines objects (e.g., 'tro-tro', 'traffic_light', 'air_quality_sensor') and their relationships, allowing different systems to understand each other's data.
3. Privacy-Preserving Data Analytics: How can we derive valuable insights from citizen-generated data (e.g., location data from transport apps) without compromising individual privacy? This research will investigate the application of techniques like differential privacy and federated learning.
4. Incentive Mechanisms for Data Sharing: How can we incentivize private entities (like ride-sharing companies) and citizens to contribute data to the city platform? This involves exploring micropayment systems or tokenization models.

Proposed Masters in Computer Science Research: A Federated IoE Platform for Accra's Mobility

The core of this research is to build and simulate a decentralized platform for managing urban mobility in Accra.

• Ontology Development: Develop a "Greater Accra Mobility Ontology" in collaboration with stakeholders like the Ministry of Transport and local transport operators. This will be the semantic backbone of the platform.
• Platform Simulation: Create a large-scale, agent-based simulation of Accra's transport network. This simulation will include thousands of vehicles (private cars, tro-tros, ride-shares), traffic sensors, and commuters, each generating realistic data streams.
• Federated Learning for Traffic Prediction: Implement a federated learning system within the simulation. Multiple "edge nodes" (representing, for example, different transport hubs) will collaboratively train a machine learning model to predict traffic congestion in real-time, without any single node having access to the raw location data from all vehicles.
• Case Study: Dynamic Tro-Tro Routing: Using the real-time traffic predictions, develop a recommendation engine that suggests faster routes to tro-tro drivers via a simple mobile interface, demonstrating how the IoE platform can optimize the informal public transport system.

Impact for Ghana and Africa

This research would provide a strategic blueprint for how African cities can build their own smart city platforms, avoiding monolithic, proprietary systems from foreign vendors. A successful project would demonstrate a path to data-driven urban management that is secure, private, and scalable. The open-source ontology and federated learning framework could be adapted for any city on the continent and for other domains beyond transport, such as public health surveillance, energy grid management, and emergency response. It would position Ghana as a leader in people-centric smart city design, building digital infrastructure that is as foundational for the 21st century as roads and electricity were for the 20th.