Smart Cities: For Citizens, By Citizens

If you look up for Colorado, you would be surprised to find its name being mentioned not very far from Silicon Valley. With its increasing and illustrious list of entrepreneurial communities and start-ups, Colorado, incidentally was a front-runner in recognizing that public sector is an emerging sector for serving its citizens, giving a glimpse of quintessentially entrepreneur-like, lateral thinking in this space. It has empowered citizens, who are rather addressed as 'customers' with effective, efficient and way more elegant public services and continues to take its streak of innovation further.

Its CIO, Kristin Russell, for instance, etched a strong change process when she took over this office, and put her lens close to a never-addressed gap. Its multitude of email systems were devoid of any chat, or in-document collaboration, or messenger tool. She pulled up many socks and moved some 30,000 Colorado employees to modern email instantly and started a big transition in making employees more productive by using all the available and yet not-touched technology around.

But what actually stands out is how this CIO collaborated with the frontline user and roped in social technologies to touch the citizens of Colorado and thus, dig out real innovation, as she calls it. When, as shared in a media interview, she opened up data sets and asked people what information would be most helpful to them, there was a staggering 200% increase in the number of data sets that have been shared, and this involved so much information that would have otherwise lied latent, had it not been for citizens coming up and sharing it. The city also embraced a cloud-first strategy and tapped its force as a huge amplifier for the state and for instilling agility.

Her idea of ultimate goals may sound bizarre but she has been clear on making intimate connections with the real people out there by leveraging social and mobile and for what may have seemed elusive and preposterous only some years back- to make government irrelevant.

Yes, you heard it right – to not go in a building anymore, is something that is catching the fancy of futuristic and visionary-city makers, whether it is Colorado, Tianjin, Mumbai or Singapore.

Yet, uncontrolled urbanization and migration levels are pushing Indian cities for new models of governance, resource management and data action ability. India will have 68 cities with populations of more than 1 million, 13 cities with more than 4 million people, 6 mega cities with populations of 10 million or more and at least two of which (Mumbai and Delhi) will be among the largest five in the world. In such a scenario, will citizens be able to secure essential services, in a manner that does not drive them up the wall?

Open Governments and not just passive governance is marking a poignant shift in the way citizens expect and accept governments of today and tomorrow. Government is ceasing to be an inwards-out and bureaucracy-infected ivory tower. A good, smart city not only believes but encourages the school of thought that the public has a right to know how they are being governed, in what modes and what can be done better. That is appreciated and plausible in every area that affects them, no matter how seemingly inconsequential.

Imagine roads where wire sensors are laid beneath the road surface of junctions to detect the presence of vehicles so smartly that each time a vehicle moves over the sensor, it causes a change in its magnetic field and hence activates a local controller for adjustment of traffic light timing and managing traffic volume. Or when pedestrians can use push buttons, placed at traffic signal poles and let go of waiting woes by injecting green-signals.

Remember how Singapore surprised with its massive, ambitious but successful projects like smart cloud-based and sensor-driven road and traffic management or that tough water operation project thus enabling it to collect waste water to produce drinking water, and meeting 50 percent of future needs by 2060?When about 50 percent of the world's population is present in urban areas, and can easily rise to 70 percent by 2050, these 2.7 billion people living in cities we inhabit posit a new challenge, as well as a never-before opportunity.

Yet, there is one factor that is largely ignored when we talk of smart cities, even though it is very crucial aspect of the same. While, there is much focus infrastructure and livability aspects, citizen services somehow tend to get overshadowed. Digitization of citizen services is an extremely critical part of the modernization. For instance, typically citizens undergo a lot of trouble and torture to make their utility payouts; road tax, property tax, water bill, etc. This is completely unnecessary as a well-thought out digitalization can ensure the availability of all these services via the Internet or even the mobile phone. Imagine citizens not having to stand in long queues for procuring certificates or making payments, now that is a hallmark of true 'smartness'.

The Government of India too realizes the need for this digitization and has introduced quite a few programs, like the http://mygov.in/, or http://india.gov.in/ that has a listing of all the various services. The benefits of such digitization are manifold; first it empowers the citizens, and makes them feel a part of the overall scheme of things. Secondly, it brings in transparency and thereby raising efficiency, which by itself is a great achievement.

In the end, when you say the word 'smart city', it connotes something sharply specific for citizens. They prefer to engage with “one” city, not a series of disconnected agencies and processes while all exist in a silo. That's why some bodies are considering identity management capabilities to help people avoid having to repeatedly identify themselves to multiple departments and creating an atmosphere where they can engage in a streamlined, 'one-halt' experience, and that too painted with personalization and privacy. Citizen services are all about engagement, and unless it is done in an holistic manner, benefits won't accrue.