BENGALURU: Why is there an ardent desire to build smart cities and why are they so popular? The answer is simple; nearly half of the global output is generated from the cities. Be it a nation that runs on agriculture, oil and gas or any other sector, only the cities contribute the most to the economy. Perhaps this is why the Indian government is trying to increase the number of smart cities as fast as it can. This year’s Global Impact Competition (GIC) in India, organized by Singularity University and Ashoka University made the following observations about India’s smart cities projects.

India’s urban population contributes to over 60 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product it can even go up to 75 percent in the coming years. Cities are where the opportunities are and that is why urban growth is so important. The numbers attributing to cities are staggering; therefore the cities need to get smarter, exponential technologies can help the government. India is already on a mission of rapid urbanization with an aim to build 100 smart cities.

Firstly, how can we, for example, improve livability and resource management? Manage disease and sanitation? There are some basic requirements which we need to fulfill before we move on to full scale urbanization.

There are rapid developments in the fields of biotech, nanotech, robotics, but hardly any countries are in a position to handle them readily. Ayesha Khanna, of the Futures Cities Group at London School of Economics states that the best step the government can take would be to take these technologies and innovate on them. Investments in innovation hubs, high connectivity, and new ecosystems make a Smart City attractive for human and financial capital.

As of today, at the individual levels, the internet and mobile connectivity are changing the urban lands ape at a rapid pace. Increasing use of technology is greatly influencing urban culture and consumption. Other global trends like peer-to-peer connections, crowd funding are yet to catch up in India.

With such technology emerging and developing every day, India could not get better opportunities to leverage these global models. India is positioning for the future.

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