Is there a case for democratization of smart applications?   Cities across the world are vying to be smarter. Ageing infrastructure and spiraling population are jostling with each other in a progressively destructive way. Upping the ante for provisioning of newer and better services is often a futile cry for enabling the change. Public procurement [...]

If the Rio Story penned by Gartner Analyst, Bettina Tratz-Ryan is anything to go by then it appears “signals” are at the heart of any smart city. Signals as defined by Web2.0 guru Tim O’Reilly, was about the use of syndication technology such as RSS to notify users of content changes. Amplify that thought to conceptualize a [...]

People are the smart units No one knows more about a city and how it functions than the people who live and work there. Ask the auto-rickshaw driver to take you from one place and the other by the shortest possible route and he will do so without needing a GPRS device. Ask the postman [...]

The year of the protestor The Times dedicated the year 2011 as the Year of the Protestor. From Tunisia to Tahrir square, from Syria to Seattle and finally from Ralegan Siddhi to Jantar Mantar, resolute citizens came together around common causes. Poor governance, dysfunctional institutions, endemic corruption and the appalling indifference of governments in the [...]