What is a Smart City?
It’s a city outfitted with high-tech communication capabilities. It uses digital technology to enhance performance and well being, to reduce costs and resource consumption, and to engage more effectively and actively with its citizens.
The idea of smart city came into formulation owing to the need to accommodate rapid urbanization of the age. Interest in smart cities continues to grow, driven by a range of socioeconomic and technological developments across the globe. It is due to the increasing number of smart cities that established suppliers from energy, transport, buildings, and government sectors are moving into the smart city market, while startups are addressing a range of emerging opportunities in the same field.
According to a recent report from Navigant Research, the global smart city technology market is expected to grow from $8.8 billion annually in 2014 to more than $27.5 billion by 2023. Eric Woods, research director with Navigant Research said, “Cities are seeking partners and suppliers to collaborate on ambitious programs for sustainability, innovation in public services, and economic development that depends on significant technology investments. The leading players in this market not only have the capacity to provide leadership on large-scale projects spanning multiple city requirements, but also delivering smart infrastructure, IT, and communications solutions to cities, supporting cities across multiple operational and infrastructure issues, and have established a global presence.”
The report examines the strategy and execution of 16 leading smart city suppliers with the capacity to provide leadership on large-scale smart city projects spanning over multiple operational and service areas. These smart city suppliers are rated on 10 criteria: vision, go-to-market strategy, partners, product strategy, geographic reach, market share, sales and marketing, product performance and features, product integration, and staying power. IBM and Cisco are some of the top suppliers in the global smart city market. They are ranked the highest in terms of strategy and execution.
What is the Scope of Smart Cities or Innovation in India?
India is drawing on the development of smart cities at the global level. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision ‘Digital India’, has a plan to build 100 smart cities across the country. Modi in his speech said, “Cities in the past were built on riverbanks. They are now built along highways. But in the future, they will be built based on availability of optical fiber networks and next-generation infrastructure.”
Digital India envisages making India a leader in digitally delivering services in the health, education, banking sectors. Modi announced an investment of $1.2 billion in smart cities with more funding coming from private sectors and abroad.
Watch exciting video of smart city in India vision
Teaching tools
1. Students used MS office
2. Sway
3. MS Movimaker
4. Internet
5. PPT (created movi)