If China can emerge from its current recession and complete its ongoing transition to technology-leader status, it will be an ever more dominant force in Asia and worldwide. Years spent living in Asia have spurred the co-Editor-in-Chief of this journal to offer informal comments on the status and prospects of China's socio-technical situation.

The intent of this paper is to identify key actors of a sustainable Smart City and define metrics that will allow assessment and better management of Sustainable Smart Cities. The paper is organized in two major segments. The first segment reviews the definition, six components, six action items of Smart Cities. It describes briefly a sample Smart City project and presents a selection of different dimensions along which Smart Cities are ranked and the rankings. The segment also discusses the technology architecture of a Smart City and then examines the definition and components of an innovation platform. The second presents the original contributions of the paper. It first introduces the dynamics created seven key actors of a Smart City ecosystem and describes their existing and potential contributions. It then defines Innopreneurship platform and presents a triple bottom line based quality metric to evaluate such a platform. This segment also discusses reengineering an economy and suggests a Smart City's Innovation Platform Score. The actions to be taken by the key actors of a Smart City in order to make it a Sustainable Smart City are described in several subsections. We hope these concepts and metrics will be a good starting point and will be refined over time by others.

The purpose of this research was to investigate the factors influencing global expansion/scalability of Kenyan Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). Factor analysis and multiple/multivariate regression analysis to determine the functional relationship between independent variables (factors) and the dependent variable was used. The independent variables were: innovation & technology, fitness/appropriateness of management, global marketing strategy; and support environment and the dependent variable, global expansion/scalability. Data was collected from a survey of randomly selected firms of 205, drawn from a population of 440 firms from Kenya Manufacturers Directory, with 175 firms responding. The key findings from the research in relation to Kenyan SMEs were that: there is a functional relationship between global market strategy and global expansion; there is a functional relationship between innovation and technology orientation and global expansion, there is no significant functional relationship between supportive environment of firms and their global expansion; and there is no significant functional relationship between fitness/appropriateness of management and global expansion/scalability. The implications for practice is that the ranking of the factors in order of priority supports focusing concern on the orientation of business strategy toward global market strategy, market research geared at obtaining foreign market intelligence, innovation and technology, product adaptation, service orientation, collaborative ventures, and long-range vision as key factors in making Kenyan firms successful in the international market. The implication for policy and practice is that there is need for collaboration between industry and government in pursuing policies for global expansion/scalability and among SMEs and large enterprises particularly in areas of rapid technological change.

This paper examine the changing ecosystems in Malaysia, starting with the government policy driven greenfield cluster of Cyberjaya, which is part of the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) mega project. In this context of an emerging economy, predominantly production oriented, the role of the government was crucial with respect to implementing policies and building infrastructure for the ecosystems. First, the roles played by the cluster development agency, universities, and industry are explained. As the cluster developed, this paper, taking an entrepreneurial ecosystem approach, explores how some actors evolved and changed their roles to become catalyst organisations established for the cluster now serving nationwide. This was followed by the emergence of new actors in the ecosystems, for example, knowledge intermediaries, and new roles for universities. In addition to actors such as universities and industry, this paper recognizes the emergence of media organisations as new actors in the entrepreneurial ecosystems in Malaysia.

Where is a better place to live? In the coming era, this should be more than simply a livable place. It should be an adaptable place that has a flexible system adaptable to any new situation in terms of diversity. Customization and real-time operation are needed in order to realize this technologically. We expect a smart city to have a flexible system that applies technologies of self-monitoring and self-response, thereby being a promising city model towards being a better place to live. Energy demand and supply is a crucial issue concerning our expectations for the flexible system of a smart city because it is indispensable to comfortable living, especially city living. Although it may seem that energy diversification, such as the energy mix of a country, is a matter of overriding concern, the central point is the scale of place to build grids for realizing sustainable urban energy systems. A traditional hard energy path supported by huge centralized energy systems based on fossil and nuclear fuels on a national scale has already faced difficult problems, particularly in terms of energy flexibility/resilience. On the other hand, an alternative soft energy path consisting of small diversified energy systems based on renewable energy sources on a local scale has limitations regarding stability, variability, and supply potential despite the relatively light economic/technological burden that must be assumed to realize it. As another alternative, we can adopt a holonic path incorporating an alternative soft energy path with a traditional hard energy path complimentarily based on load management. This has a high affinity with the flexible system of a smart city. At a system level, the purpose of all of the paths mentioned above is not energy itself but the service it provides. If the expected energy service is fixed, the conclusive factor in choosing a more appropriate system is accessibility to the energy service. Accessibility refers to reliability and affordability; the former encompasses the level of energy self-sufficiency, and the latter encompasses the extent of energy saving. From this point of view, it seems that the small diversified energy systems of a soft energy path have a clear advantage over the huge centralized energy systems of a hard energy path. However, some insuperable limitations still remain, so it is reasonable to consider both energy systems continuing to coexist in a multiplexing energy system employing a holonic path to create and maintain reliable and affordable access to energy services that cover households'/enterprises' basic energy needs. If this is embodied in a smart city concept, this is nothing else but smart energy inclusion. In Japan, following the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011, a trend towards small diversified energy systems of a soft energy path intensified in order to realize a nuclear-free society. As a result, the Government of Japan proclaimed in its Fifth Strategic Energy Plan that renewable energy must be the main source of power in Japan by 2050. Accordingly, Sony vowed that all the energy it uses would come from renewable sources by 2040. In this situation, it is expected that smart energy inclusion will be achieved by the Japanese version of a smart grid based on the concept of a minimum cost scheme and demand response.