'Smart Cities Should Look At Transforming Data To Decisions Looking For Sustainability'

Smart cities are about governance, but also culture and retaining the original spirit of the city. You need to make sure you keep the cultural heritage intact while transforming the urban landscape.

At the 7th Smart cities conclave, Deepak N G, Director- Innovative Business, Dassault Systems said, “Smart cities have to be done in collaboration with public, and we expect the government to do everything.  Days are gone when IT used to be in coding only, it is becoming mandatory in every industry now and Dassault is trying to support the stakeholders. The advantage in India is that we are a developing country, and we have the opportunity to develop with state of the art technology and learn lessons from others.”  

Dr. Anurag Batra, Chairman, BW Businessworld said there is transformation happening in smart cities and it is about involving the citizens and being responsible in terms of security, connectivity, and communication. Smart cities should be planned and built for the next 50, or 100 years.

Subrata Das, Sr. Director, Digital Transformation Office, SAP India said, “We have come to a distance in our smart cities mission. Several things have gone right and several could have gone better, but we can always learn. We should look at the development as how many jobs have we created, and uncovered new job streams.”

Stressing on data, he said, “If you look at Smart Cities 2.0, you will be generating a lot of data, but it has to transform to decisions and asset management, while also looking at environmental and financial sustainability. Fiscal balance has to be attained when you have financial management structures where IT systems can help implementing blockchain technology which is very secure.”

NSN Murty from PwC India said we are getting the opportunity, not just in funding but administration. The smart cities' mission might extend in completion, but tenders need to close by June 2020. He also talked about the intent to do it as the most important part of the mission. On the negative part, failure in creating procurement guidelines have caused the delay.