Bhopal’s Deployment of Project CityApp a Milestone for SAP

SAP SE today announced that India’s Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC), with a vision to improve quality of life through better administration and citizen services, has implemented solutions from SAP to automate and centralize public service offerings. Available in Hindi, the solutions will help BMC manage and streamline day-to-day functions, including issuing marriage certificates, birth and death registrations, city infrastructure development and open space management, including roads, parking, traffic signals, community halls and schools. The solutions will also streamline permits, health services, water supply, lake conservation and tax collection, among other services. Bhopal’s project is a milestone for the SAP Urban Matters program, premised on the idea that improving livability, simplifying government and nurturing local economies are key foundations for a city’s long-term success. The announcement was made at the SAP Forum Delhi, being held on August 13 in Delhi, India.

 “Our vision is to make our services accessible to every citizen in the language they speak and understand,” said Tejaswi Naik, Commissioner, Bhopal Municipal Corporation. “With the adoption of this technology, we are quickly transforming into one of India’s first Municipal Corporations to formulate, promote and leverage technology at a grassroots level for the benefit of citizens in general and, specifically, the underprivileged.” 

 In a first for SAP in the wider Asia-Pacific region, BMC plans to deliver citizen services through project “CityApp.” Project “CityApp” aims to develop an SAP mobile app that will provide an easy access point for city services and will help citizens navigate through city services, stay informed and engage with their neighbors. Envisioned to be available on multiple leading mobile platforms, project “CityApp” is intended to simplify citizens’ day-to-day interaction with the corporation on the mobile platform of their choice.

 “This is an exciting time for India and the wider region,” said Vivek Puthucode, vice president, Public Services in Asia Pacific Japan, SAP. “From transportation to healthcare, innovations in technology and citizen engagement are poised to transform our cities and improve lives.”

 With many new challenges facing urban areas today, the SAP Urban Matters initiative helps governments at all levels improve the lives of people by delivering smarter, more effective services. The program addresses and supports the fundamentals of good government by empowering public officials to be more productive, increasing community engagement and openness, driving innovation around government service delivery and improving urban resilience to help public safety and security. 

 “Across India, local governments are turning to innovative technologies to help them address the challenges of urbanization as well as rising citizen expectations for smarter economies and sustainable growth,” said Mathew Thomas, vice president, Strategic Industries in India, SAP. “We aim to help local governing bodies like BMC to accelerate innovation and connect directly with people and communities to deliver efficient governance.” 

 Implemented in partnership with Deloitte, the solutions portfolio chosen by BMC includes the SAP ERP application, the SAP Enterprise Portal component, SAP for Public Sector solutions and SAP Mobile Platform. The software will provide BMC the right mix of technology solutions needed to automate and centralize end-to-end public service offerings in the city and achieve seamless integration of their citizen-facing services and back-office functions.   

A Futuristic Vision Of Smart City Urbanization In India

 By Anuj Puri, Chairman & Country Head, JLL India

Across the world, the stride of migration from rural urban areas is increasing. By 2050, about 70% of the population will be living in cities, and India is no exception. India will need about 500 new cities to accommodate the rapid influx of population into its urban regions.

Interestingly, urbanization in India has for the longest time been viewed as a by-product of failed regional planning. Though this is inevitable, and will only change when the benefits of urbanization overtake the costs involved, it is an opportunity for achieving faster growth.

With increasing urbanization and the load on the land in rural areas, the Indian government has now realized the need for cities that can cope with the inherent challenges of urban living and also be magnets for investment to catalyse the local economies. The announcement of ‘100 smart cities’ falls in line with this vision.

A 'smart city' is an urban region that is highly advanced in terms of overall infrastructure, sustainable real estate, communications and market viability. It is a city with information technology as its principal infrastructure and the very basis for providing essential services to its residents. There are many technological platforms involved, including but not limited to automated sensor networks and data centres. Though this may sound futuristic, it is now likely to become a reality as the ‘smart cities’ movement unfolds in India.

A smart city offers a superior way of life to its denizens, and one wherein economic development and activity is sustainable and rationally incremental by virtue of being based on success-oriented market drivers such as supply and demand. They literally benefit everybody, including denizens, businesses, the government and moreover the environment.

Origins Of The 'Smart City' Concept

The concept of smart cities originated at the time when the entire world was facing one of the worst economic crises. In 2008, IBM began work on a 'smarter cities' concept as part of its Smarter Planet initiative. By the beginning of 2009, the concept had captivated the imagination of various nations across the globe.

Countries like South Korea, the United Arab Emirates and China began to invest heavily into research and the formation of smart cities. Today, there are a number of excellent precedents that India can emulate for its own smart cities programme:

·         Smart City Vienna in Austria

·         Aarhus Smart City in Denmark

·         Amsterdam Smart City

·         Cairo Smart Village in Egypt

·         Dubai Smart City and Dubai Internet City in the UAE

·         Smart City Lyon in France

·         Smart City Málaga in Spain

·         Malta Smart City

·         The Songdo International Business District near Seoul, South Korea

·         Yokohama Smart City in Japan

·         Verona Smart City in Italy

Smart Cities In India

In India, the cities that have ongoing or proposed smart cities include Kochi in Kerala, Ahmedabad in Gujarat, Aurangabad in Maharashtra, Manesar in Delhi NCR, Khushkera in Rajasthan, Krishnapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, Ponneri in Tamil Nadu and Tumkur in Karnataka. Many of these cities will include special investment regions or special economic zones with modified regulations and tax structures aimed at making is easier and more attractive for foreign companies to invest in them.

This is an essential factor for success for smart cities in India, because much of the funding for these projects will have to come from private developers and from abroad.

Challenges

The smart city concept is not without challenges, especially in a country like India. For instance, the success of such a city depends on its residents, entrepreneurs and visitors to the city becoming actively involved in energy saving and implementation of new technologies. There are many ways to make residential, commercial and public spaces sustainable by ways of technology, but a high percentage of the total energy use is still in the hands of end users and their behaviour. Also, there is the time factor – such cities can potentially take anything between 20-30 years to build.

BBC Selects Mindtree For Digital Testing Services

Mindtree, a global information technology services company, announced that it has been selected by BBC to test a range of its digital products.

As part of this non-exclusive engagement, Mindtree will deliver and support testing of digital products and applications. Digital products include applications and websites that run on a wide variety of digital and broadcast platforms. Some of them are desktop computers, mobile devices, cloud, integrated digital TV, internet protocol TV, terrestrial, cable, satellite TV and the web. 

 Mindtree testing services will include functional, non-functional, test management, exploratory, automation and load testing.  BBC selected Mindtree for its testing capabilities, test tools expertise and the ability to effectively deliver the engagement.

 Ramesh Menon, Senior Vice President and Head of Technology & Media, Mindtree said, “We are excited to be part of the BBC digital services framework. Millions of citizens globally benefit from BBC and we hope to enrich their experience with our superior digital testing capabilities.”

 Richard Smith, Head of Market Engagement, BBC covers the program details on digital services framework at his blog. 

Karnataka To provide Extended Support To Indian Entrepreneurs

The Government of Karnataka (GoK), in partnership with NASSCOM, has announced the setting-up of a 50,000 sq.ft. GoK-NASSCOM Start-Up Warehouse NextGen which will be the hub where outstanding technology entrepreneurs with innovative ideas will be nurtured, mentored as well as funded by venture capitalists. The GoK-NASSCOM collaboration also launched India’s first Hackcelerator, a unique combination of a Hackathon and an Accelerator to be housed and integrated into this new warehouse facility.

 The new GoK-NASSCOM Start-Up Warehouse will be a large integrated facility in the heart of Bengaluru and will provide a working space for startup companies to be housed for 6 month incubation terms, co-working space for entrepreneurs to use on pay-per-use daily/weekly basis, a well-equipped community events space available for meet-ups & workshops, an IoT (Internet of Things) Lab, a Design Lab, Mobile Experiences Lab and hoteling office space for visiting corporate executives and investors. Once operational, this will be one of the largest multi-disciplinary technology incubation facilities in Asia and the largest across the top five metro cities of India.

Sharing his thoughts on the occasion, R. Chandrasekaran, Chairman, NASSCOM, and Executive Vice Chairman, Cognizant India, said “Start-Ups have been a growth engine for the industry and the economy for quite some time now. NASSCOM had always focused on the three core-pillars of - Evangelizing Entrepreneurship by addressing identified challenges and promoting entrepreneurship as a preferred career option, building capacity by educating aspiring and early stage entrepreneurs on various aspects, and enhancing early stage support for Startups. This collaboration with GoK is a great leap in this regard and will provide the requisite support to the start-ups and entrepreneurs at the right time in the right shape and form.” 

 Applications for this new facility will be starting immediately and the facility is expected to become fully operational and ready for occupation by the end of 2014. The Government of Karnataka will contribute towards the facilities while NASSCOM will contribute to the full-time program management. NASSCOM will also constitute an advisory board for managing and governing the entire facility and activities at the center. Industry partners will help mentor and nurture the startup teams at the warehouse, execute skill development workshops, assign executives in residence, provide specialized skills in the areas of product management, mobile, IoT technologies and design. Once fully finished and occupied, the facility will have capacity to house 100+ startups comprising between 1-12 employees each on a 24x7 basis.

 Government of Karnataka (GOK) recently celebrated the first anniversary of its first GoK-NASSCOM Start-Up Warehouse. The unique facility, set-up in partnership with NASSCOM, resulted in 28 start-ups creating more than 100 jobs and bringing in US$ 1 million of investment and has become a hub of Startup ecosystem community activity in Bengaluru. Six of these companies are serving the global market. Under this program over 50 start-up events have been conducted with 2,000 participants. The program also runs an online mentorship impacting over 200 companies in Bangalore and over 500 across the country.

 Bangalore has emerged as the second largest technology hub on the planet after Silicon Valley. The main attraction of the City is its rich and diverse talent pool, ideal eco-system consisting of 400 plus R&D and Innovation Centers and pro-active government support for the industry. The city is emerging as the R&D, Start-Up and Innovation hub of India. Department of IT, BT and S&T has taken up innovative initiatives for further boosting the global image of the city such that it emerges as an important destination on the global Start-Up and Innovation map. NASSCOM 10,000 start-ups initiative is aimed at incubating, funding and supporting 10,000 startups in India over the next 10 years is run in partnership with Google, Microsoft, Verisign, Kotak and Intel.