Dear Students,
Today we heard four lectures – please share your key takeaways from each lecture. Please do not to duplicate others comments for full credit.
- 08:00am to 10:45am – Lecture & Discussion with Prof. Darwin on The Framework for Building Smart Cities
- 10:00am to 11:30am – Dr. Nagesh Rao, Director at MICA – Cross cultural Communication
- 11:30am to 12:00 pm – Dr. Rao, Chairperson – MICA Incubator about “Relevance of Communication for a Smart City”
- 01:45pm to 04:00pm – IIT Faculty Presentations “Shared resources & Cost effective technologies on Developing a Smart City”
- 04:00pm to 05:00pm – Visit to Step Well
Today’s lessons featured a lecture from the Director of MICA, Professor Nagesh Rao, on the need for multi-cultural and diverse teams to affect city-level development. From his view, lack of diversity leads to similar teams and cities unable to challenge multifaceted problems that affect India and the world. In the context of smart cities, global acculturation leads to a standardization of cities that can erode individual cultures. Dholera, India’s first planned smart city and our case study, will draw on information technology infrastructure to create and distribute value for all city stakeholders. However, the computer generated depictions of Dholera reveal a city landscape and structure near identical to aspects of Dubai, Singapore, and many U.S. and European cities. This raises important questions about the need to meld “smarter” tools for the development of efficient cities with protecting and progressing individual cultures. To be a truly “smarter” city, leaders must address the challenge of finding a balance between progress in development and maintaining a cultural status quo.
Today I found the discussion about cultural cacophony to be the most influential. Although we did not exactly touch on smart cities, we discussed the importance of cultural norms and avoiding assimilation of cultures in an increasingly global society. Moreover, we discussed the importance of dissonance in society. The way this thinking can apply to our research on smart cities is that in developing them, the country/state/province must not lose its identity. The architecture in the Dholera clip that we viewed early in the morning showed nothing that would make the city seem like it was in India — rather interchangeable with a modern city in America. A city that is smart must not only provide its citizens with a more comfortable and sustainable way of life than before, but appeal to their cultural and community needs to actually keep them from moving away.
Today we started off our day with a lecture by our very own Professor Darwin. We learned about the framework of smart cities in the context of open innovation. Any city, be it a “smart” one or not, can essentially be run like a business. Each city has distribution channels, stakeholders, assets, activities, etc. Thus, our mission now is to look at how a “smart” city can best serve its stakeholders (citizens, businesses, etc) by creating relationships with partners (investors, government, etc) to be sustainable. We then heard from Dr. Nagesh Rao, the director of MICA. Using metronomes as a metaphor, Dr. Rao introduced the cross-cultural challenges inherent in moving cities towards a more “smart” model. He reminded us to “keep the dissonance” alive, as it is in diversity that we have rich experiences to learn from. With increased standardization, there is also the risk that we can lose certain elements of a culture. Dr. Rao’s point made complete sense. Earlier, Professor Darwin had shown us a video that explained what the smart city in India would look like, and I remember thinking that it looked extremely futuristic, like something out of sci-fi movie. In fact, I did not see any element of the Indian culture in those videos, which is worrisome. We then transitioned to a discussion about the start-up culture in India, led by Dr. Rao, the chairperson of the MICA incubator. It was really interesting for me to hear that there is no central database in India that compiles all the start-ups in India. Dr. Rao’s work is setting the foundation for this database, and this just highlights the need that currently exists to document the various lifecycles of Indian startups. After a lunch break, we visited IIT Gandhinagar, one of the premier engineering universities in India. Here we heard from a variety of faculty members about the sustainability measures currently being utilized on campus and those that are being planned for future cities. The lectures from today really highlighted the need to remember the human elements, whether it be in the form of stakeholders, cultural identifiers, or as key players, when making decisions regarding the integration of technology in communities.
My favorite part of today was having the honor of meeting with Dr. Nagesh Rao, the President and Director of MICA. He started off his lecture asking each of us what our cultural identities were. Through this, I learned of the different upbringings and diverse cultures of my peers. It made me realize that “smart cities” not only needed to conserve natural resources, but also needed to help facilitate the preservation of existing cultures as well. A professor at ITT made a poignant comment about how today’s urban planners need to stop trying to rebuild India into looking like America. Rather, they should be looking at things that were done correctly in the past (like the Adalaj Stepwell) and mimicking it, just more efficiently. On the topic of cross cultural communication, Dr. Rao also sad that “dissonance is an integral part of harmony.” That quotation really resonated with me because the reality is that it is FUTILE to expect seamless communication between people of different backgrounds and cultures. Rather than trying to achieve full integration, we should learn to embrace differences and achieve harmony through the celebration of each others’ uniqueness. I believe today’s lesson on cultural communication has opened by mind to the power of perception. It’s not the experience that changes us, rather it is how we see it that really makes a lasting impression.
After a few visits from officials from local universities, a notable distinction became clear between the contrasting educational experiences in India and America. That is, in the latter, there is a heavy emphasis on preparing young Americans for STEM-related fields in which science and technology are slowly overtaking liberal arts and the skills associated with it in higher education; whereas in India, technical universities such as the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) requires all incoming students to first take part in a program designated to prepare the students for taking on the world of work via general areas of study rather than applied or specialized fields before engaging in their technical courses. In doing so, they aim to provide their students with an invaluable set of employability skills, including the ability to think not only for oneself but also for others. An assistant professor at IIT stressed liberal arts supplements within a technical education as a necessity to enable the potential for technology to serve society. “Smart cities are compassionate cities,” concluded the assistant professor. Therefore, in moving forward, the educational system of India will continue to create a duality and variability in mindset for students which will result in more open and innovative systems that will spur the even faster growth of India’s economy and startup presence.
We started the morning off with a lecture from Professor Darwin about the necessity of building a smart city as one would structure a business model. He elaborated further on the opportunities for innovation when creating and capturing value for a city. Following Professor Darwin’s introductory lecture, we heard from Dr. Nagesh Rao about cross-cultural communication. Dr. Rao discussed the present challenges that confront businesspeople in an increasingly globalized marketplace. To convey his principal message, he showed us a YouTube video of 32 out-of-sync metronomes that slowly sync together into perfect harmony. In the video, there is a single metronome that fails to sync with the others until the last second. Dr. Rao stated that he wants to be that single metronome keeping the dissonance. He further asserted that dissonance is an integral part of harmony and that “resistance is part of the journey.” I found Dr. Rao’s commitment to consciously embrace difference to be rather striking. His insistence on maintaining cultural identity and welcoming a diversity of perspectives seems to be in conflict with the idea of a smart city, which appears to prioritize standardization and efficiency above preservation of culture. This tension between standardization and culture is a concern that was later echoed in our meeting at IIT Gandhinagara. The worry that smart cities may damage the integrity of what Dr. Rao refers to as “cultural dissonance” has proven to be a critical component of our discussions as we attempt to balance the technological ideals of smart cities with the desire to safeguard cultural values and practices.
Today we heard presentations from two Mr. Raos…both of whom had expertise in the Indian business landscape and spectacular sense of humors as a cherry on top.
We began with Dr. Nagesh Rao, the President of MICA Institute, who also taught Communications in United States universities. He asked us about our thoughts about India-things like the rules, the system, the attitude, and the culture. One of the first observations involved the crazy driving on the streets of India. Dr. Rao took this a step further. “Collective culture can be seen in the movement and rhythm of any group of people.” Staying with the driving example, he pointed out the organized chaos of traffic in India, the social hierarchy of a rickshaw vs a BMW vs a bus, and the #1 goal of simply making it out alive. Not only are these principles of organized chaos, social hierarchy, and survival exemplified on the roads, but they are evident throughout the Indian mentality and daily way of life.
Now, Mr. Rao, a Professor at MICA institute, pointed these principles out in the start-up space of India as well. India is the 4th largest growing startup country in the world, just behind the United States, the UK, and Israel. Focused in mainly New Delhi and Bangalore, Startups and Entrepreneurship in India face many of the same challenges that start-ups everywhere face–funding, market adoption, return on investment. However, the predominance of large corporations in India, lack of funding due to immediate need for return on investment, and social norm of pursuing a college education and consequently joining industry has stunted Start-up growth in the past. Recently though, digital platforms and start-ups that focus on delivering cloud services, and big data analytics have thrived. The emergence of start-up hubs like Kochi Start-Up city have also made India a promising hub of intellectual success for the future.
main problem is funding in india
43% of funding is from foreign sources
B2B B2C
6% women founders
lots of focus by government on women entrepreneurs in rural villages
small start-up kit + token amount of money
lots of large enterprises collaborating with start-ups
open innovation!
Google Ventures
Hardware is the new software
BdAs and Cloud computing + white space start is is number one
industry agriculture, health, education
Open fuel start-up:
online business model canvas, entrepreneurship tools, flexible and customizable canvas
Blog: Patterns + Rhythms of culture evident in Start-Up space of India as well
India needs a website portal that documents the start-up activity
Today we heard presentations from two Mr. Raos…both of whom had expertise in the Indian business landscape and spectacular sense of humors as a cherry on top.
We began with Dr. Nagesh Rao, the President of MICA Institute, who also taught Communications in United States universities. He asked us about our thoughts about India-things like the rules, the system, the attitude, and the culture. One of the first observations involved the crazy driving on the streets of India. Dr. Rao took this a step further. “Collective culture can be seen in the movement and rhythm of any group of people.” Staying with the driving example, he pointed out the organized chaos of traffic in India, the social hierarchy of a rickshaw vs a BMW vs a bus, and the #1 goal of simply making it out alive. Not only are these principles of organized chaos, social hierarchy, and survival exemplified on the roads, but they are evident throughout the Indian mentality and daily way of life.
Now, Mr. Rao, a Professor at MICA institute, pointed these principles out in the start-up space of India as well. India is the 4th largest growing startup country in the world, just behind the United States, the UK, and Israel. Focused in mainly New Delhi and Bangalore, Startups and Entrepreneurship in India face many of the same challenges that start-ups everywhere face–funding, market adoption, return on investment. However, the predominance of large corporations in India, lack of funding due to immediate need for return on investment, and social norm of pursuing a college education and consequently joining industry has stunted Start-up growth in the past. Recently though, digital platforms and start-ups that focus on delivering cloud services, and big data analytics have thrived. The emergence of start-up hubs like Kochi Start-Up city have also made India a promising hub of intellectual success for the future.
Today’s speakers gave us a new perspective on how to approach topics of smart cities, although through many different points of view. One thing that we were able to glean from Professor Darwin’s lecture and the directors of MICA and IIT is that by assuming that India is best off following Western modes of development, we may be ignoring possible modes of value creation and cultural maintenance. By questioning the status quo and figuring out what will be best for India specifically when it comes to environmental, cultural, and educational sustainability, we will be able to approach smart cities with a more efficient perspective.
1. It is vital to consider the value creation when innovating and creating smart cities. 2. Dr. Nagesh spoke about being individualistic and embracing your unique cultural backgrounds no matter where you are in the world. 3. Startup culture in India is thriving and focuses on needs from slums to businessmen. 4. It is important to create a campus that thrives with open communication via the architecture.
In light of reflection- I would love to add a little bit more about this comprehensive day.
1. It is vital to consider the value creation when innovating and creating smart cities. 2. Dr. Nagesh spoke about being individualistic and embracing your unique cultural backgrounds no matter where you are in the world. 3. Startup culture in India is thriving and focuses on needs from slums to businessmen. 4. It is important to create a campus that thrives with open communication via the architecture.
1. In the first lecture, Professor Darwin began the day by taking us step by step through how an economy functions. I found his lecture to be extremely fascinating and allowed for many pieces to fall into place. I learned that open innovation is the key to creating a lively and well-functioning environment. Also, creating value is the number one most important aspect of an economy and every other moving part within that economy thrives off of that center of value. In relation to smart cities, as my group will work with the City of Oakland- I will use Professor Darwin’s framework to frame my thinking and remembering to create value.
2. Dr. Nagesh Rao, the Director at MICA gave one of my favorite lectures that lasted with me throughout the trip. He made each of us question and confirm our personal cultural differentiations and identities. For example, I spoke how as a Jewish, American, Russian, I have a tri-cultural identity and the most important aspect for me is community and being authentic to yourself and the people around you. I am applying Dr. Rao’s lecture to smart cities in the sense that even as India grows and builds its smart cities, it should still try to retain what makes India unique to India. For example, as we watched the traffic video of a random intersection in India, it showed how people in India work so much together to just even cross the street. This aspect of working together should reverberate in the making of the smart cities.
3. When the next man spoke about the MICA Incubator about “Relevance of Communication for a Smart City”, it really opened my eyes to the startup culture in India. I had no idea also about the profile of how only less than 10% of entrepreneurs in India are women. As a feminist and human rights activist, I would love to see that number go up in the following years. There need so to be some sort of a cultural shift in India to help women have more power and education to not only learn more but to also feel empowered enough to begin their own businesses. s
4. It was fantastic hearing from IIT Faculty about “Shared resources & Cost effective technologies on Developing a Smart City”. They spoke about their new campus and how they will be utilizing solar panels, renewable energy, and waste energy to create a sustainable campus. I think that moving forward for smart cities, there will be more and more schools that will be utilizing this smart campus organization.
Today was the best day in india yet! One of my favorite speakers today is from Nagesh Rao, the President and Director of MICA. I liked how he asked us to consider our identity when we are interacting with others. I think that there are so many dynamics to consider and this point was highlighted when he said that in india “safety is a privilege,” whereas in the U.S context it’s almost a given. Also, I like the idea of following the “flow” and using transportation/mobility as a way of analyzing a culture (i.e: personal space). In the american context, we need to be more critical of this especially with Uber and Lyft changing the landscape – what does that tell us about american culture?
Oh also, there seems to be a lot of emphasis on the idea that “SMART cities are basically businesses”and I’m not quite sure of this idea. Because, is it possible to have business canvases fully encompass the complexity of a city. Aside from resources, partnerships, value capture, and etc. where would other aspects like income inequality, intangibles, welfare, government, and policies belong? And with the idea of revenue – cost = profits – how are we going to quantify happiness?
Finally, I think that to begin thinking about SMART cities we need a more comprehensive way to figure out why cities have even come about in the first place. Here is a slide deck to some basics of urban economics: http://www.enec.ethz.ch/education/urbanspatial_hs13/Lec3
Today marked the second official day of our adventure in India. Like yesterday, we were given the opportunity to listen to four lectures from various individuals with different expertise Professor Darwin first gave a presentation on the Framework of Building Smart Cities. From this lecture, I learned that there are multiple ways for entities such as cities and businesses to create value outside of technological innovation. Creating value can range from improving the distribution process to providing better standards of living. The bottom line is that entities can create value if they successfully address their customer pains and concerns. Dr. Nigesh Rao was the second presenter of the day. What was unique about this presentation was that it did not focus on concepts relating to “smart cities” but rather honed in on the importance of recognizing cultural differences in business and embracing it. Dr. Rao spoke about the recent and emerging standardization of culture. Although standardization of culture is an inevitable part of a globalizing world, it is important for us to recognize that it has potential dangers as well. Globalization has the potential to create uniformity, but the consequence with that is that it is possible to lose the unique cultural identity that people possess. As a result, it is important to embrace dissonance and diversity in a world that is becoming more uniform. Next, we had an opportunity to listen to Dr. Rao who talked primarily about the start-up culture India. To my surprise, India’s start-up culture has growth significantly over the past few years. In fact, it currently has the fourth fastest growing start-up community in the world. Part of the reason for this growth is because India has proven to be a prime place to test the youth market and is very cost-efficient because it is cheap to hire staff such as software engineers. However, there are also challenges in working in India. Because there is general skepticism and a lack of respect towards the idea of startups, it has been difficult for the country to encourage entrepreneurship and start-up activity. Lastly, we spoke to the IIT Faculty. What I learned was that IIT is very interested in essentially creating a “smart school” that implements systems to ensure a sustainable school. Already, they have begun projects in hopes of creating a school that is able to utilize its resources wisely. Their hope is to be the leaders in the emerging sustainability market.
As we continued on in our journey of expanding our knowledge towards the topic of Smart Cities, the organized arrangement of presentations seamlessly linked with each other although they covered different topics across smart cities. It was extremely useful to start off the morning with Professor Darwin’s lecture on Frameworks for Building Smart Cities, as it provided us with a lot of background and contextual key information regarding the development and challenge of managing the growth of cities within the economic situation. One phrase Professor Darwin brought up that really resonated with me was this: “The value that you create today is useless tomorrow, unless you refresh it!”. It reminded me of the lesson emphasized yesterday by BRTS about the primary importance of value creation in satisfying the needs of the community first through factors like customers, resources, and more, in order to create an effective smart city system.
I truly enjoyed listening to Dr. Nagesh Rao’s insight soon after about India’s culture and the behavioral practices that are reflected to promote individualism. After personally witnessing the tenacious nature of Indians right from the minute I landed in India, his insight really helped me understand the strong correlation between culture and behavior, along with the importance of embracing cacophony and difference within the development of smart cities in order to preserve the beauty of a unique identity. Especially in Haas where many students constantly face peer pressure of following typical career paths in order to achieve ‘success’ in their careers, I felt this advice was particularly relevant for us. Furthermore, learning about the prevalent start-up culture in India was truly fascinating! While India is different from America in many ways, it was insightful to learn about similarities like the encouragement of women in the workplace, as well as the emphasis on simplicity towards interface designs to promote the usage amongst the community. Finally in IIT, it gave us the opportunity to understand how the concept of smart cities can also be implemented in universities to promote effectiveness and efficiency. As Srini mentioned, a liberal arts education is important for even engineers, as they are provided with a two-sided view of the practicality of using technology to serve society, along with the compassion in order to execute it in the best manner possible.
Today’s four lectures were on very diverse topics, although I think a common theme was the significance of culture on a city’s development:
Pro. Darwin’s Lecture – One reason companies within the U.S. are able to constantly “reincarnate” and repeat the growth cycle is that our society’s culture fosters innovative thinking. The key education and government institutions largely shape this culture of innovation, while countries with corrupt institutions are significantly hindered in this area.
Dr. Nagesh Rao – India is one of the countries rapidly adopting many of the aspects of the U.S. culture, and Dr. Rao believes that the diversity and “chaos” closely linked to many Indians’ identities can be forgotten during this phase. Smart cities are an example of this risk, as the city designs appear to mimic Western cities rather than traditional Indian cities.
Dr. Rao – Indian start-ups are booming but a cultural hindrance is the fact that only 6% of start-ups were started by women and this can reduce the diversity of these businesses.
ITT Faculty – Interestingly, the ITT faculty believes that a cultural risk is the heavy emphasis on STEM fields and the disconnect between these fields and humanities. This can cause cities to moves away from and neglect the key lessons of the past, and the U.S. is currently going through a phase of emphasizing STEM.
In order to build a smarter city, we must ask ourselves what really contributes to economic growth of a city.
With that being said, we listened as Professor Darwin lectured on the overall framework for building smart cities. We learned that open innovation must be consumed at all levels to increase value for the city. In order to create value there must be a collaborative environment all thriving off one another. Since at the end of the day all sectors within business are interconnected.
On December 30, 2014, we were met with President of MICA University, Nagesh Rao were we had an intellectual dialogue on cross-cultural communications. He gave the example of how different cultures communicate different things due to the vast array of cultures, principles, and beliefs. Mr. Rao had an extremely charismatic lecture that I thoroughly enjoyed. He ended his lecture by showing us a video of 32 out of sync metronomes and how they end up synchronizing. He utilized the video of the out of sync metronomes as a metaphor to keep reminding us to keep the dissonance alive. That sometimes staying in sync isn’t always the answer. It is said that a good global leader comes up with optimal solutions in times of dissonance and all-embracing organized chaos.
We then listed to a chairperson of MICA Incubator speak about the overall startup culture in India. There he gave the students an overview of India’s current startup businesses, socioeconomic landscape, and relevance of communication for smart cities. It was interesting to learn that India has emerged as the 4th largest startup location globally behind Israel, UK, and USA, respectively. The Haas group then boarded the bus for a long ride to visit the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Gandhinagar, India. We participated in a very business like dialogue, learning how IIT is contributing to being a smart city/school. That currently their shared resources & cost effective technologies such as recycled renewable energy and bio-waste management has allowed them to emerge as a very sustainable and well respected university and campus all throughout India. As a side note, I found it extremely admirable that one of the professors at IIT said that to him, personally, a smart city is a compassionate city. Lastly, before we concluded our day and headed back to our dorms at MICA University we took a short visit to the Adala Step Well. This well was made in 1499 and had the most intrigued and hauntingly beautiful architect to it. It was nice to finally get out of the classroom and see the inner beauties within India.
When asked of the students’ takeaways from the program thus far and their thoughts for the future, Haas student, Sue Ann Goh (BS 2015) eloquently described how important open innovation is when building smart cities. Kaitlyn Tsai (BS 2015) followed up with practicality and relevance, asking how theses current business models of India’s startups could be utilized for a sustainable future. With our tummies filled with delicious fish curry (and one or two slices of Dominos Pizza) we rest until tomorrow as we have a full day ahead for our last day of 2014!
Today, I’d like to mirror many of my peers in our appreciation for Dr. Rao’s enlightening dialogue. His reminder for us to keep in mind a maintenance of strong cultural identities whilst also creating progress is a relevant lesson even beyond smart cities. In particular, at our visit to the IIT campus, we considered the efficiency of the smart city plans to begin with. As we walked through the cool stone well, I realized this ancient structure creates value and melds with the ecosystem without an infrastructure of sensors or intense glass structures.
At this point, with all the information that has been shared with us, I am slightly skeptical at the real impact that these smart cities have. My concerns stem from the scale-ability of these projects, inclusion and maintenance for these projects,
“Dissonance is a necessary ingredient to harmony.” Concluding with this moving quote, Dr. Nagesh Rao started off our day with a charismatic presentation that brought attention to the study of cross-cultural communication. His leadership in working with companies across the U.S.-India borders taught us that cultural difference in timing, privacy, and communication procedures creates significant HR and relational problems on both American and Indian counterparts. However, he concludes that although we should respect cultural differences, we should also take pride in being different and preventing groupthink.
Similarly, Dr. Rao and Chairperson of MICA Incubator shed light on the importance of smart cities to the landscape of tech startups in India. Although startups are currently centered in Bengaluru and New Delhi, there are several fast-growing metro cities that will become emerging hubs for tech startups. Even more impressive is the dedication of the Ministry of Skills Development & Entrepreneurship to reaching out to villagers and inspiring new business ventures. The primary growth drivers for India’s increasing focus on innovation and startup culture include: 1) international companies leveraging India as a test bed before going global, 2) large domestic market of highly educated scientists and engineers, 3) the ease of business creation and development of patents in India.
As we learned in lecture, partners are key to the success of smart cities. Large enterprises benefit from collaborating with Indian startups, because they can leverage India’s startup capabilities to generate cost synergies. The startup, Openfuel, was a particularly eye-opening presentation for me. This online incubator, operating as a completely not-for-profit organization, makes building a business and planning community events even easier with its online business model canvas. MICA’s dedication to supporting grassroots startups like these is truly admirable.
Finally, the IIT faculty at Gandhinagar brought attention to potential ways to generate sustainable energy sources within India and recycle biowaste for future use. The primary challenges lie in minimizing the gap between supply and demand of energy on-site rather than in a remote load center. IIT Gandhinagar is an example of a “green model” that works, with the faculty’s close monitoring of the electricity demand per campus and managing energy generation through solar power generation systems. As Srini, a fellow Cal grad, mentioned: “You can be smart, but you also need compassion.” His words emphasized the importance of taking care of city residents while these cities are rapidly transforming, and IIT has been a thought leader in this area by providing temporary housing for construction workers.
Today’s lectures shed light on the role that culture plays in a country’s development:
Professor Darwin taught us that virtually all successful companies share a destiny where they must repeat the growth cycle in order to survive. Frequent mergers and acquisitions can only sustain a company’s growth for so long. In an era where advances in technology shorten product lifecycles, companies have to keep innovating in order to “reincarnate” and repeat the growth cycle.
Dr. Nagesh Rao’s lecture revealed that amidst the chaos of India’s streets, traffic flows smoothly. At intersections, traffic lights don’t guide the crowds of vehicles. Rather, drivers rely on nonverbal cues, which can be as loud as a horn or as subtle as a vehicle decelerating slightly, to know when they should yield or make a turn. Order arises naturally out of disorder in India.
As someone who teaches humanities at a STEM institute, Professor Srini of IIT made the insightful observation that Indian architects keep pushing for more of the same glass skyscrapers that are prevalent in Western countries, but it would be very inefficient to climate control these buildings in the sweltering heat of India. Instead, if they looked back in the history of India, they would discover that Indians had created a strong material for construction that would keep buildings cool without electricity. Such a forgotten innovation from the past is what engineers should continue to develop to adapt to today’s needs and promote environmental sustainability.
From these lectures, we learned the importance of maintaining cultural identity as society rapidly progresses forward.
8:00am to 11:45am – Framework for Building Smart Cities
Through Professor Darwin’s lecture, I learned that cities operate under various business models. Much like for and not-for profit businesses, cities create value through their 1) resources 2) activities, and 3) partners. Examples of a their value creation are community building, efficient methods of transportation, and increased safety. Such value is delivered to citizens via various distribution methods and, when delivered, citizens provide value to the city through relationships.
While most cities are good at creating value, a vast majority of them struggle to capture value. More specifically, cities have a hard time increasing their triple bottom line (profits) because the investment cost, which funds resources, activities, and partners, is large. In order to be both sustainable and profitable, cities need to focus on innovation, which is the process of turning knowledge into money, research, the process of turning money into knowledge, and catalysts, the vehicles through which value is created.
10:00am to 11:30am – Cross-cultural communication
Soon after our first lecture, Dr. Nagesh Rao, Director at MICA, shifted the focus to cross cultural communication. We began our session analyzing the culture of India by observing traffic in India. The absence of lanes, traffic signals, and the lack of pedestrian walkways forced both drivers and pedestrians to be fully aware of their surroundings. Although the traffic was chaotic, each member of the community was able find his/her way through, collectively creating a harmonious commute.
It was clear that a such environment is a direct reflection of India’s culture of being sensitive to physical, emotional, and spiritual surroundings. I was pleased to learn that, in India, a doctor’s duty to notify a patient’s family members before notifying the patient him/herself of a serious diagnosis, is just one of many examples of being sensitive to one’s surroundings. Amidst the disorganization of communities and much tension in traffic, “dissonance is an integral part of harmony” (Dr. Nagesh Rao) in India, and maybe the rest of the world.
11:30am to 12:00pm – MICA Incubators
A lecture on MICA incubators by Dr. Rao quickly followed Dr. Nagesh Rao’s lecture. This lecture was very informative – we were presented with facts that illustrated the development of India’s startup industry. I learned that the number of startups in India is significantly lower than that in the US due to the difficulty in doing business in India. The Indian government’s strict regulation on private and public partnerships greatly contributes to this reality.
I also learned that 45% of India’s startup funding comes from the United States, with the majority of that funding going to B2C focus companies. This means India’s current focus is on the selling of goods and services to customers, and there is a low level of utilization of existing competitive advantages from businesses. I believe that having limited incentives in partnering with other businesses is detrimental in the development process of the Indian economy, and an increase in trade activities between public and private institutions, will effectively expedite the development process of the Indian economy.
*Interesting fact: The majority of Indian startup companies are looking for programmers who are proficient in HTML 5 and Java, whereas the majority of US startup companies are looking for programmers who are proficient in C++ and Ruby, which means web applications are heavily demanded in India whereas mobile applications are highly demanded in the US.
1:45pm to 4:00pm – Discussion @ IIT on shared resources & cost effective technologies on developing a smart city
Our final session was held at IIT Gandhi Nagar, where we had a discussion about sharing resources and applying cost effective technologies when developing a smart city. The faculty of the university informed us that the school generates energy to closest to the receiver through solar PVs to reduce energy waste. Similar to CEPT, IIT GN minimized cost by eliminating storage of energy and shortening the distance the generated energy needs to travel. Although the cost for purchasing, installing, and maintaining solar PVs is expensive, the added benefits of proximity and efficient energy generation allow the university to benefit in the long run. Simultaneously, the university is uses energy consumption data to locate peak demand and works to generate energy only when needed.
Sirini, a Cal alumnus and a faculty member of IIT GN, concluded with the statement, “A smart city is one that looks after all members of the society”. I was delighted to hear that IIT is committed to improving the quality of life of all members of society through technology that leads to cost efficiency and sustainability.