| |April 20198REIFYING ICT IN SMART CITY INITIATIVESBy Prasun Dutta, Advisor - Gaia Smart CitiesPrashun is a veteran with over three and a half decades of work experience, across India and overseas. His experience is a mix of management consulting and industry. As a management consultant with the National Productivity Council and later with TCS he has worked in the areas of strategy, structure and systems for an array of business and governmental organizations.T he peripatetic hu-man race has been migrating into ur-ban centers since the beginning of civilization. Earli-er trading hubs and governmen-tal offices formed the kernel of urban areas which were greatly bolstered after the industrial rev-olution. Prognostication based on current trends suggests an alarming celerity of growth and an urbanization level of around 64 percent by 2050. The shortage of land, water, good quality air, and the desire for better quality of life, will continue to put limita-tions on economic growth. Glob-ally, therefore, an appropriate management of such cities will become a sine qua non.`Smart cities' should be able to provide its citizens with a superi-or quality of life and render gov-ernance a lot simpler. It should enable participatory and inclu-sive management of cities and ensure the safety and security of all its denizens. Cities are mod-eled today as complex organisms. Various parts of the cities, its ad-ministration, businesses, people are all interacting with each oth-er to keep the city functioning. These Systems-models of cities and the subsequent design of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) system can en-able the city to function as one integrated entity. In today's cit-ies, we often encounter situations where different aspects of a citi-zen's life appear to be sequestered from each other. Each department of local authorities has their own requirement and information flows from one department to an-other is non-existent. Simplifying Complex Cities with ICTICT systems greatly aid in the handling of the varieties that are inherent in such a complex con-text. In the great diversity that characterizes our cities, monitor-ing behaviour and ensuring ad-herence to rules, or identifying potentially dangerous or disrup-tive situations are the causes of mismanagement that can be rede-signed with intelligent use of ICT systems. Imagine if you could get reports of incoming patients from all the hospital/medical centers in a city; one could easily identi-fy any incipient trend that could grow to be an epidemic, or one could identify the location from where a particular disease seems to be originating and take correc-tive measures to avert the further expert opinionICT SYSTEMS GREATLY AID IN THE HANDLING OF THE VARIETIES THAT ARE INHERENT IN SUCH A COMPLEX CONTEXT
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