Haas students with Smart Cities’ CEO, Ramakant Jha
On our last day in Ahmedabad, we had another busy schedule ahead of us. We began our morning by learning about people’s tendency to sell their assets for less than half price, compared to when they first bought it. This is due to the fact that we, as human beings, have a myriad of assets and some end up going to waste — eventually becoming what business innovators call a dead asset. With this in mind, entrepreneur Maulik Pandga built the business model for his newly developed phone application called Sharehero.
By reducing duplicates through crowd sourcing a sharing network, Sharehero is a solution for sustainable living. What we found extremely intriguing is the fact that, compared to its competitors, Sharehero is a one-of-a-kind app that cultivates a positive sharing culture.
After listening to Mr. Pandga speak, we had the opportunity to listen to Tyco representative, Akhand Kumar, share about Tyco’s goal of becoming both a smarter and a sustainable brand. Mr. Kumar then introduced a subsidiary of Tyco called Proximex, which is a company that was established in 2005 in Silicon Valley. With Proximex products (such as smoke detectors, surveillance cameras, etc.) being implemented (where?), we now see a positive trend in the industry of conserving of costs. For instance, you could access the CCTV at the park and watch your kid through your phone by tapping into the CCTV’s camera IP number. Like Mr. Pandga stated, a smart city has smart safety.
After our first two morning lectures and Indian breakfast we headed on the bus for a long one-hour drive to visit the prestigious Indian Institute of Management (IIM) University. Once we were there, all of the Haas students began to joke around and point out the similarities of the campus to that of ours. They even had a grand entrance with what we called the “Haas Steps” because it emulated very similar to ours back home. We then listened to a very inspirational lecture from the famous professor, Anil Gupta as he talked about Frugal Innovations, building bridges across boundaries, and emerging tension in open innovations platforms. He asked us how must we address the problems between different socioeconomically societies and classes. He noted three pillars of sustainability: technology, institutions, and culture. While technology is like words, institutions are like grammar and culture is the thesaurus. He then introduced his database, Honey Bee Network. This network allows someone to share his or her research in a specified topic with the mission to solve problems by sharing research globally. He ended his lecture with a word of advice: that if you make a smart city for only the rich then it’s not a smart city at all.
After listening to multiple lectures defining a smart city we finally had the opportunity to visit Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT) located at the outskirts of Ahmedabad. GIFT is Gujarat’s gift to India and the world. GIFT aspires to cater to India’s large financial services potential by offering global firms world-class infrastructure and facilities. GIFT is funded by the Government of Gujarat and private companies in a novel public-private partnership. We had the utmost pleasure discussing with CEO Ramakant Jha on the smart city and it’s future buildings. In the future, the CEO welcomes Haas students to further invest and engage with the smart city agenda. GIFT is attracting global attention with planned visitants from Bill Clinton, Dr. Jim Young Kim, Ms. Christine Lagarade, Mr. Takeihko Nakaso, Ms. Janet Yellen, Mr. Jeff Immlet, CEO, GE, Dr. Martin Winterkorn, Chairman, Volkswagen Group, Mr. Jeff Bezos, Mr. Michael Dell, Mr. Ben van Beurden, CEO Shell Global. It was inspirational to see this first step in making a city in India an international hub. Just like Prime Minister of India, Shri Modi said, “The vision of Gujarat would be incomplete without capitalizing on the in-house financial business acumen.” Creating this city to intertwine with technology, meet the needs of modern Gujarat, modern India, and really create a space in the global financial world is an inspirational leap for India that I am excited to see take place in the near future. GIFT is estimated to be completed in 2022.
With 2015 right around the corner, we headed back to our dorms and MICA to get ready for the New Years Eve party. I’m sure most of the students would agree that the most exciting part of that night was being able to wear the traditional clothing and learn the Indian way of celebrating New Years. It was a pleasant sight to see everyone dancing together, eating both traditional Indian food and barbecue, and launching lanterns with their New Years resolutions! 5-4-3-2-1 Happy New Years!!
by Isabelle Lee
Probably the first real exposure I’ve had to a full-fledged smart city came after our visit to GIFT city in Ahmedabad. As we drove up, I must admit that I was skeptical that this was going to become a tech and finance hub because there were simply two 28 story buildings standing next to each other in a rural area. However, once we entered the GIFT city headquarters and received a presentation on the planning of the city, I was reassured that the location and development of the city was extremely strategic. Not only was it placed near the Ahmedabad International Airport, but the land was given to the GIFT city corporation in a novel public-private partnership. Companies that want to develop pay a nominal development fee and yearly land lease that comes out in the hundreds of American dollars. By keeping development costs so low, the city allows for more rapid development and will provide office space that is far cheaper than Delhi or Mumbai. Because GIFT is a specialized city waiting for International certification (to be the first city to be certified to conduct trade on Indian soil), the corporation is not worrying about profit/loss at this point — rather creating a city that will provide 500,000 indirect (service) and 500,000 direct new finance and technology jobs in India. Moreover, every aspect of living and working in the city has been planned out in terms of creating the most advanced and efficient infrastructure and using one interface in two control centers to control every single building and utility. The interface was so simple yet amazingly precise in that one could change the temperate for one thermostat on the 15th floor of a specific building or check the status of one fire alarm on another floor. Every building in GIFT will have this level of control, so this makes me extremely excited to come back in 2022 at estimated completion to see the efficiency achieved with such intricate planning and management interfaces. After GIFT, we also went to Priya’s home for a New Years celebration where we ate barbecue, listened to both Indian and American music, and launched lanterns with our New Years resolutions into the sky! Having one of the only two lanterns to successfully launch (with the help of one of my colleagues) was a very exciting way to start the New Years!
With the start-up culture in India flourishing, we had the privilege of starting our day off by hearing from a local entrepreneur by the name of Maulik Pandya. Mr. Pandya has been working to develop an app called ShareHero, which provides a platform for sharing one’s personal assets to others within a community. By “game-ifying” the lending process through a point-and-reward system via medals, ShareHero not only differentiates itself from its current competitors but also works towards fostering sustainability. That is, the app combats the “throwaway” or “designed-for-the-dump” mindset which is deeply engrained within modern society where the productive life or usage of a product becomes increasingly shorter and shorter; lending through ShareHero eliminates the potential waste that would be created if a product would be thrown away or left idly unused, ultimately providing benefits to those in need and the environment.
Following, we met with Akhand Kumar, the Managing Director of Marketing of Tyco, and Anil Gupta, a professor at IIM. Both presenters highlighted the importance of specialization and the integral role it plays within the concept of a Smart City. Mr. Kumar described the products and processes Tyco provides for life safety. As a world-renowned company, Tyco is forefront in its security solutions and fire protection. Then Mr. Gupta pointed to the need for an open source network filled with specialized knowledge. He called for an integrated mechanism that was open to the public to foster collaborative efforts and strengthen the “smartness” of a city. As we continue onto Delhi, I’m looking forward to see if other cities in India are moving towards both the breakdown of specialization via open sourcing and collaboration and the implementation of specialized skill sets in the building of Smart Cities.
• I also learned a lot by visiting the GIFT city. This city is attempting to create a financial hub in Gujarat because Mumbai is overflowing. A struggle I have with this concept is that it might not satisfy the needs of people on every level, for example, people living in the slums. However, on the other hand, it is not the responsibility of the developers of the GIFT city to satisfy everyone’s needs, they are just trying to establish India as an economical leader. This smart city though is very smart because it will look absolutely cutting edge and the people in it will be able to effectively working together. I also want to point out that there will be training centers that teach specific skills to people to help them rise in social economic status. I will be able to apply the knowledge I learned from the speakers through the fact that there will be a great deal of data sharing with the city command and control center.