Smart Cities: Ample Space for Learning Systems Integration

Dr. Jagdish H Godihal, Professor Civil Engineering, Presidency University, Bengaluru

Cities are engines of growth for the economy of every nation, including India. Nearly 31% of
India’s current population lives in urban areas and contributes 63% of India’s GDP (Census 2011).
With increasing urbanization, urban areas are expected to house 40% of India’s population and
contribute 75% of India’s GDP by 2030. This requires comprehensive development of physical,
institutional, social and economic infrastructure. All are important in improving the quality of life
and attracting people and investments to the City, setting in motion a virtuous cycle of growth and
development by enabling technology to integrate physical infrastructure and e-infrastructure.
Development of Smart Cities is a step in this direction by the Government of India, Smart Cities
Mission.

The purpose of the Smart Cities Mission is to drive economic growth and improve the quality of
life of people by enabling local area development and harnessing technology, especially
technology that leads to Smart outcomes. This can be a long term goal and cities can work towards
developing such comprehensive infrastructure incrementally, adding on layers of ‘smartness’.
The Traditional Cities:

The traditional cities are sociotechnical systems, a place where people live and work together.
Generally it has four dimensions (figure 1): Firstly as an economic system, a place where wealth,
and a location in which jobs are created. Secondly, as a social system, a way of life, and with a
culture, traditions and more. Thirdly, as a political system, where in the governance. Lastly, a
technological systems. Comprised of physical components, infrastructures, (roads, railways, etc);
organizations (Utility services, Industries).

City as an City as a
economic system social system

City as a
City as a technological
political system system

Figure 1. Four dimensions of traditional cities (Source: IGLUS EPFL)

Smart cities

The traditional city, have two main layers, the infrastructure and the service layer. However, the
addition of third layer, data layer between these two layers, transforms the traditional cities into
smart cites (figure 2).

Services

Data

Infrastructure

Figure 2. Data layer, a new layer, defines smart cities

Smart cities are characterized as a new way of governing by using technologies in order to increase
the public administration capacity and improve citizens’ quality of life. “A city well performing in
a forward-looking way in economy, people, governance, mobility, environment, and living, built
on the smart combination of endowments and activities of self-decisive, independent and aware
citizens”. The world is forever growing and evolving, as is the demand for new buildings and
good infrastructure for cities. The pressure of population growth and global warming are ever
increasing, and smart city concept can play a major role in designing more efficient structures, as
well as planning projects in developing countries. In coming years, there will be a great scope for
budding engineers, graduating civil engineers with specialization in smart cities incorporating new
dimensions to the existing cities in the world around to meet the demands of the future.

The smart cities are a new paradigm of urban infrastructure systems wherein the learners have
many opportunities to learn new thinking, new methods, new approaches, transforming traditional
cities to smart cities.

 Relevance: It is IT enabled program correlating/integrating cities physical infrastructures

and/with IoT, Data systems to enhance efficiency and effectiveness to its maximum. This
program trains you all as symbiotic engineers, utilizing knowledge and skills of both civil
engineering and computer engineering domain.
 Impact: This will helps in learning processes to convert traditional cities to smart cities;
inculcating critical thinking skills about the application of the knowledge gained rather
than transcribing the content.
 Changes you are going to make in your life: You all learn to integrate physical
infrastructure with that of e-infrastructure to make smart cities resilient, sustainable and
efficient, while undergoing various courses in this program.

Credentials of the Blogger:

Name: Dr. Jagdish H Godihal

Designation: Professor in Civil Engineering

Qualification: M.Tech, Ph.D (IIT Bombay)

Dr Jagdish has over 35 years of academic, administrative and research experience, as Professor,
Principal, and Director. He has presented and Published over 30 papers in National and
International Conferences and Journals. Dr Jagdish has an immense passion for teaching and
environment, smart and sustainable infrastructure systems for urban and rural areas, has executed
projects related to teaching learning, employability skills and environment conservation funded by
local, state and national governments and private industries. Dr. Jagdish has obtained many
certifications in courses from IIT Bombay, IIT Madras, IIT Kharagpur, IIT Guwahati, IIT
Roorkee, IIT kanpur, SPA, New Delhi, IUCEE and Boston University; University of California,
Irvine, Yale University, USA; McMaster University, University of Copenhagen, Pohang
University of Science and Technology, South Korea in domain and Engineering Education.
Recently he has been certified by NPTEL, Swayam, and IITM as a Domain Scholar in Faculty
Domain - Advanced. He has organized over 50 Faculty Development Programs, CEP,
Conferences, and seminars and has chaired many sessions in conferences and has delivered
keynote addresses, 200 expert lectures/webinars across various institutes in India.