Startups eyeing Smart City projects

In the year 2015, the Government of India put forth a very competitive but dreamy vision of ‘Smart Cities.’ However, the definition of smart city differs from one state to another depending on the infrastructure and services required for each one of them. But one common feature for all the states happens to be the application of smart solutions to the infrastructure or services in areas which are conducive to the citizens.

Usage of technology, information and data under the smart solutions has given a boost to startups working on similar applications. However, accessibility to governments smart city projects isn’t easy for startups. “The government is slow in accepting anything new because of the fear to be questioned. Because of traditional reasons, they want to play it safe for themselves and stick to the norms,” said Pratap Padode, Director, Smart Cities Council of India.

However, e-procurement practiced by municipalities has brought new companies to the front. “The new companies have to be financially strong, as the government will not give a contract to a company which many not have the financial resonance to carry out the entire project. So, they need basic maturity to handle the project,” Padode added.

The Hans India spoke to Arshya Masood, Hyderabad Co-Partner, BigDataBees Consulting Services(BCS), an Indian Government recognised start-up (DIPP-13919). The firm has been recently incubated in the T-Hub, India’s largest incubator for startups in Hyderabad. BCS is conceptualising Digital Roadz 2.0, next generation traffic and the i-SmartTrail (Smart City control hub).

Arshya said, “After a formal entry process of six-months, we have gained a co-working space for our startup in the T-Hub centre. We will be supported by a team of experts, venture capitalists and industry stalwarts. We are very excited to be mentored at T-Hub, as it will help us refine our product and further meet up with prospective investors to support us grow and connect with clients.”

The Chennai-based startup founded in 2016 is headed by IT solution architects with a team of technical consultants, data architects, database designers and database developers with BigData domain experts. It is working on innovation and development of products focused on public and entities, an initiative part of the Smart City mission.

“Digital Roadz 2.0 is a pilot being developed by BCS which is managing urban highways for current and futuristic needs of traffic domain,” said Arshya. The proposed solution is an integrated planning, monitoring and decision-making platform to bring in improved travel and traffic index. “The major departments which can be benefited are PWD, transport department, police, health-emergency, environment and forest department as our platform will provide detailed study on traffic domain and big analytics for trend analysis, forecast, predictive and better proactive planning,” she confirms.

The startup has also come up with another product called i-SmartTrail (Smart City control hub). It is centralised public service focused on providing data of live events or incidents or organized activities of public entities for better organisation and workflow. Such activities are planned, tracked and integrated using latest IoT technologies.

“i-SmartTrail is a BigData and cloud state-of-the-art platform and integrated with IoT which is first of its kind in integration of governmental departments, enabling them to act swiftly in the event of a crisis or problem,” she says The self-financed startup is looking forward to generating deal flow for its business through its association with T-Hub and is confident that the smart solutions it has lined up will help Telangana in transforming its cities into smart cities.

“There will be around 30 times return on investment based on our solutions in various categories including faster resolution of issues or activities and public grievances, ease of citizen access to public services, highest safety measures, and integrated smart governance,” she concluded.

BY Divya Rao