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Economic opportunities, the lure of city life, worsening farming conditions and population growth are causing rapid expansion of cities all over the world, resulting in global urbanization.

2008 marked a tipping point, when the world’s urban and rural populations became equal for the first time in history. The UN World Urbanization Prospects report says that cities will house 70% of the world population by 2050.

Insi

ghts Innovation and the City

Rapid urbanization is creating opportunities for new technologies to make a new difference

- Girish Khanzode, Shekhar Potnis

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The primary goal of the following technologies is to enable efficient management of existing civic services as well as the delivery of new ones.

• E-Government portals to enable cities improve communication and provide information to citizens, local businesses, suppliers and tourists

This rapid pace of urbanization in unprecedented in history. In 1950, there were only 83 cities with more than one million inhabitants. By 2011, this number crossed 500. The number of megacities (10 million+ citizens) will grow from 2 in 1950 (New York and Tokyo) to 29 by 2025.Urbanization is putting pressure on cities to improve services in order to remain competitive and prosper. Forced to look for better alternatives, cities can find help in a host of new technologies and services. It is estimated that this quest will create a one trillion dollar market by 2016 as cities look to battle the ill effects of urbanization caused by the high pressure on existing infrastructure, resources and services, creating new challenges for administrators and poorer living conditions for inhabitants. These challenges range from stressed healthcare systems to overly regulated business environments to shortage of water, energy and human capital resources to environmental pollution to rising clamor from citizens for better services and governance.

In order to be habitable, cities must address the above issues as well as the needs of their stakeholders – citizens, industries and civic administration – by providing efficient civic services that are aligned with changing expectations. And they must do it quickly, because at the current rate of urbanization, the time available for ramping up civic services and infrastructure is becoming shorter and shorter. (To put things in perspective, today, cities are clocking the same growth in 10 years that they did over 25, in the past.)

This calls for a higher level of civic-savvy. While efficient resource management is important, it can only take cities so far. What they also need is to deliver existing as well as a new generation of services in innovative ways, beginning with a higher level of citizen engagement.

Managing the information pertaining to the cities’ stakeholders and services is central to the agenda, and technology innovation its primary lever. Accordingly, cities must implement initiatives led by advances in sensor, mobility, analytics, wireless networking, RFID and smart card technology to name a few, in public services like civic administration, education, healthcare, transportation, public safety, utilities, communication and green housing.

What follows is a list of technological opportunities that can enable cities to achieve their goals in different areas of interest:

CIVIC ADMINISTRATION

• Online, workflow driven management of processes like complaint filing, tax payment, vehicle/ property/ business registration, driving license application etc.

• Use of communication technologies for virtual town meetings and exhibitions

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A new set of technologies that use broadband, Wi-Fi and analytics will be required to make good quality education accessible to all citizens at low cost.

• Online libraries to reduce costs of managing physical public libraries

• Multi-channel delivery of education to citizens through devices like smartphones, televisions, i-pods and computers

EDUCATION

• eLearning and digital content technologies to enable higher education and skills development relevant to local industries, anywhere, anytime and on demand

• Virtual classrooms, teleseminars

• Video conferencing for tutorials and homework

• Collaboration technologies to manage day-to-day operations to improve responsiveness, enable voluntary citizen participation in civic initiatives, give the unemployed access to local job opportunities, education or training, use GPS tracking to support rehabilitation of offenders, make it easy for citizens to dynamically form communities based on interests and issues, enable electronic voting on civic issues for quick decision making, facilitate direct contact of citizens with government officials for faster issue resolution

• Surveillance cameras to effectively manage transportation operations and provide security

• Centralized command and operations center for each city, which receives inputs from sensors fitted all over the city to monitor,

optimize and deliver public services to match dynamic demand, and rapidly respond to emergencies like fire, floods and riots. Such sensors can monitor traffic flows, water and air quality, energy usage patterns and flow of people movement based on smartphone data, which can help urban authorities take decisions in real time

• Smart waste management solutions that leverage RFID tags and sensors as triggers for activities like waste collection and recycling, use of electronic noses to detect harmful bacteria and chemicals in landfills, drive automatic notification and collaboration among city departments to improve waste collection and treatment efficiencies

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New healthcare technologies will be essential to improve the availability, speed and accuracy of diagnosis in addition to providing wellness and preventive care in a cost-effective manner.

• Real time electronic patient data shared amongst healthcare providers to do away with the need to fill the same form time and again at different hospitals. In case of emergencies like accidents and epidemic, availability of this information can speed up treatment

• Intelligent medical devices like pulse oximeters and blood pressure monitors to help collect data quickly

This set of technologies will use real-time information to anticipate and rapidly respond to impending disasters, emergencies, threats and help manage mass events without mishap.

• Smarter 911 systems that automatically identify caller location through fixed telephone location, cell triangulation or using GPS in smartphones thus improving response time for people in distress

• Automatic License Plate Recognition using image processing to monitor incoming traffic at city boundaries to identify antisocial elements

HEALTHCARE

PUBLIC SAFETY

• Remote patient monitoring and video conferencing technologies for the elderly, disabled and chronically sick. Patients can be fitted with GPS capable ID bracelets that track location, medical condition and medication administration

• Telemedicine to allow patients residing in remote areas to receive medical services

• Biorobots to develop micro, nano and macro devices for assistance in diagnosis, surgery, prosthetics, rehabilitation and personal assistance

• Mobile clinical assistance devices and applications for monitoring patient activity, blood pressure, glucose level, heart rate etc.

• Video Surveillance Systems supported by real-time information exchange

• Smart public safety solutions that use sensor-activated video surveillance cameras, video analytics, and workflows to identify and route suspicious or anomalous observations to the appropriate authorities

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A new set of energy management technologies that minimize outages, reduce cost, avoid wastage and optimize production of energy or water based on real time demand will be required.

These technologies will deploy new generation hardware, software, and network technologies that provide systems with real-time information about the real world and advanced analytics to help citizens and businesses make more intelligent decisions about alternatives and actions that will improve how they use energy and resources.

• Deployment of a smart grid system that provides smart meters, appliances, thermostats, consumer portals and in-home displays

Communication networks like broadband networks will be the backbone of interactive sensor deployments, operating citizen portals to communicate and provide public services, transmit video surveillance and data files to cities’ backend server systems. These will utilize new technology components like radio-frequency identification (RFID) tagging, broadband networks, Bluetooth, Wi- Fi, WiMax, ZigBee devices, Near Field Communication (NFC), intelligent energy management, collaboration technologies and unified communications.

UTILITIES

COMMUNICATION

to consumers, utilizes grid sensors and uses WiMAX to transfer energy data. These are electrical grids that use computers and other technologies to collect and act on information like the behaviors of suppliers and consumers in an automated fashion to improve the efficiency, reliability, economics, and sustainability of the production and distribution of electricity. Smart grids are interconnected with Internet Protocol (IP) enabled sensors, supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems, air conditioning (HVAC) systems, distribution automation system, demand response system and home area networks..

• Charging infrastructure for electric vehicles

These would consist of:

• Intelligent devices like smart phones, smart meters and sensors as cost effective data devices for infrastructure, vehicles and people

• Pervasive networks to enable real-time communications among intelligent devices and back-end systems

• Analytics and social media technologies to process real time data streams, enable real time decision making and provide a platform for information dissemination and collaboration

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A new generation of transportation technologies to reduce traffic congestion, encourage use of public transportation by improving customer experience, convenience and making travel more efficient, secure, and safe. These will be beneficial in areas like toll collections, congestion management, parking space utilization and real time traffic information.

• An intelligent vehicle toll system to manage traffic congestion using sensors, Geographic Information Systems, GPS for location awareness, smart cards, analytics and wireless networks for data traffic. It can collect and analyze traffic data to control flow of traffic to congested areas by diverting vehicles to alternate routes by providing real time traffic updates and charging dynamic congestion toll charges using smart cards as vehicles

The International Energy Agency estimates that existing buildings are responsible for more than 40% of the world’s total primary energy consumption and 24% of global carbon dioxide emission. Green building technologies that reduce operating cost, improve energy efficiency, and reduce waste and pollution, will be essential to sustainable cities of the future.

These solutions will use smart meters, monitoring devices, and sensors to connect heating, air-conditioning, lighting, security systems and other appliances in homes and businesses thus enabling

TRANSPORTATION

GREEN HOMES / BUILDINGS

enter the city during crowded hours

• Traffic data visualization and integrated fare management

• Real time and location aware information for route planning and route guidance that helps people avoid congested areas

• Electronic payments across public transport facilities like trains, buses and taxis using a single smart card

• Enabling payment of parking charges using SMS from mobile phones, providing alerts for parking space availability on mobiles based on vehicle location

• Renting of personal vehicles and one way sharing using location aware smartphone that detects nearby availability of such vehicles in real time

users to better track and control use of electricity and water.

• Intelligent lighting that saves energy when rooms are empty by automatically switching off lights. This lighting can adjust itself based on sunlight to maintain optimal light levels, thereby saving energy

• Sensors and monitoring devices that enables users to better track and control use of electricity and water

• Smart meters, home area network and in-home displays that allows consumers to optimize their energy usage

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About the Authors

Girish KhanzodeProducts & Platforms Innovator for futuristic technologies, Infosys

Girish is a veteran in Enterprise Software Product design and development with more than 20 years of professional experience. He has built and led large engineering teams to deliver highly complex products in various domains, covering entire product life cycle. Currently, he is engaged in innovating and building the next generation products and platforms in emerging technology areas like enterprise data privacy, collaboration technologies, next generation workplace platform, analytics, smart cities, Big Data and internet of things. Girish holds M. Tech. degree in Computer Engineering and a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Government College of Engineering, Pune.

Shekhar PotnisAssociate Vice President and Delivery Center Head – Pune, Infosys

Shekhar has over 20 years of experience in the IT services and has been with Infosys for the last 16 years. He has played diverse roles including account and service delivery management for large global client in financial services and Logistic domain.

© 2012 Infosys Limited, Bangalore, India. Infosys believes the information in this publication is accurate as of its publication date; such information is subject to change without notice. Infosys acknowledges the proprietary rights of the trademarks and product names of other companies mentioned in this document.

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