Industry Leaders Discuss Opportunities in Smart Cities for India.
Washington DC. US India Political Action Committee (USINPAC) organized a Smart Cities roundtable discussion of the Smart City Industry Leaders to Discuss Opportunities in Smart Cities for India titled “To evaluate scope of business and opportunities in the Smart Cities, Infrastructure, Clean India opportunities in India” with Dr. Udit Raj, Member of Parliament, North-West Delhi.
The Round Table discussion attendees included some of the world’s leading Smart City builders, planners and proponents from organizations such as the Smart City Council, World Bank, Brookings, Louis Burger, Parsons, DLA Piper, CISCO, CACI and LATA to name a few.
In his opening remarks Dr. Udit Raj, whose constituency has the scope of total raw land for building a new city, as one of the only five smart cities in India, mentioned of the growing needs of building Model Cities and Model Villages looking at the growing population and increasing pollution in India’s villages and cities. He remarked about creating new pollution free Smart Cities, commenting upon the recent news reports of U.S. President Barack Obama potentially losing roughly 6 hours from his expected lifespan after spending three days in India’s capital during the Jan 26, 2015 Republic day celebrations inhaling the toxic air.
Mr. Pedro Ortiz a former Mayor of Madrid (Spain) World Bank Advisor and a Megacity expert commented about some of the lessons learned from Navi Mumbai initiatives, he re-iterated the need for strong leadership and inclusion of all the stakeholders.
Mr. Vikram Chauhan Co-Founder USINPAC and one of the Smart City pioneers applauded the initiative of Dr. Raj and the Honorable Prime Minister Modi for creating the vision for India through the Smart City initiative. Mr. Chauhan noted that the Smart City is not an infrastructure-driven concept but a service-driven concept and the success of a Smart City project is not determined by technology or capital; but dependent on vision, leadership and inter-group coordination amongst all the stakeholder.
Dr. Indu Singh one of the Smart City pioneers and prolific author of Smart City books, who had provided input for the development of the initial Smart City initiative in Singapore, a model for all Smart Cities, commented on the need for developing Smart Cities which would differentiate itself such as to attract businesses and residents to flock to the city, is a key to making the new smart cities a success.
The speakers at the Round table brought out the ever-greater need for the collaboration of the Public and the Private sectors and of the various potential stakeholders.
Source: Newssuperfast