Carleton University’s Canada-India Centre for Excellence (CICE) and its partners in India have launched a new program to promote smart cities.
The prime minister’s trip to India cemented the Canada-India Smart Cities Centre of Excellence for Capacity Building (CI-SCECB) project, which will tap into Carleton’s expertise in areas such as wastewater treatment, urban infrastructure and municipal governance to train Indian city planners.
India is in the midst of a massive US $15-billion Smart Cities Mission to upgrade and modernize civic infrastructure in 100 cities and 500 smaller towns, but the project faces significant challenges in institutional capacity for planning and design, governance and the legal expertise needed to negotiate complex contracts.
Carleton’s CICE will offer training programs in Ottawa for Indian planners and designers. These programs will leverage the university’s capacity and networks of researchers associated with several units, including the Centre for Urban Research and Education (CURE), the Carleton Urban Research Lab (C-URL) and Global Water Institute (GWI), as well as Prof. Mohamed Ibnkahla, who holds the NSERC/Cisco Senior Industrial Research Chair in Sensor Networks for the Internet of Things.
India’s Smart Cities Mission represents a significant opportunity for Canadians companies and institutions. But a lack of capacity in India creates risks, which the CI-SCECB intends to alleviate by training 150 urban planners over the next three years and building platforms and tools for smart city planning, with support from at least 50 Canadian students.
Establishing stronger connections to India is a priority for Carleton and the eight-year-old CICE, which is at the forefront of the university’s efforts to enhance its international reach.
Quotes
“Faculty and students at Carleton are recognized leaders in the development of smart cities. This new partnership enables us to grow Carleton’s strong connections in India and to share our expertise. Carleton is not sitting back and waiting, but is actively researching, creating, testing and commercializing cutting-edge ideas that will help the global community become more prosperous and livable for all its citizens.” – Carleton President Alastair Summerlee.
“CICE has extensively analyzed the Indian smart cities initiative. As a result, we have developed an interactive online portal, called Smart Cities Navigator, to identify market opportunities in India for Canadian investors and companies. This initiative will leverage our expertise to deliver capacity building training for smart city planners. The program will be delivered with Indian partners, including several higher education institutions and NGOs.” – Harry Sharma, manager, CICE.
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Friday, February 23, 2018 in News Releases
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