Swifter mobility, improved access to public infrastructure and safer environment for women should be the basics of future towns. By Avinash Gautam
With the government of India announcing creation of 100 smart cities, there is tremendous interest across sectors of society to understand it better and contribute towards it. Progress in technologies and new inventions continue to happen everyday. And there will always be newer and better ways to make things ‘smarter’ than what they already are today or what they will be tomorrow.
Here are 10 things which will go a long way towards making the vision of a smart city a reality:
Smart governance: This aspect is high in public consciousness, especially with disconcerting news on the safety of women, road rage, robbery attacks on the elderly and juvenile delinquency. Clearly, networks of video-cameras, brightly lit public areas, intensive patrolling and surveillance, identity-verified access and rapid response to emergency calls are all on the expectations list.
Smart buildings: Buildings are important units of a smart city, and the smartness has to start there. Technology can go a long way in ensuring that the buildings are secure, energy efficient and are capable of generating actionable data for larger city planning.
Smart mobility: The huge trend towards urbanisation has put tremendous stress on inter-city mobility, the stress for which can be seen in most urban areas in India like Bangalore. An out-of-the-box solution is needed to handle such massive urbanisation without causing the city to come to a grinding halt.
Smart infrastructure: The roads, railway stations, airports, electricity, telecommunication and other utilities need to work in a much more organised, cohesive and efficient manner.
Smart healthcare: Massive urbanisation causes a stress on every aspect of the city, including healthcare. A sustainable living in a city is possible only if cost-effective and quick healthcare is made available to all. A massive paradigm shift is required to achieve this objective, and technology will have a big role to play.
Smart security: A smart city needs to be a safe city. There is much more to security than just deploying CCTV cameras in every nook and corner. A truly integrated security and response system, which integrates technological aspects of security-to-security agencies, communities and law enforcement agencies, is required to ensure a safe city.
New business models: The scale of work required to make a city smart will require massive investments, and government will not be able to absorb it all. Innovation business models need to conceived and implemented.
participation of stakeholders: It would be very important that all the stakeholders like government, service providers, utility companies, citizens et al, participate actively to make goals a reality.
(The author is CEO, Silvan Innovation labs)