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How residents can make their own smart cities!
Posted on: 28/Aug/2015 3:13:49 PM
Sure! With a basic smartphone a resident can use apps designed to influence authorities to improve civic facilities! The sophisticated communication-based personal gadgets with customized software applications could be used to improve neighborhoods. So, it is not at all an exaggeration to state that `smart city begins at home`!
Chennai residents are already showing the way: Chennai Shopping, Chennai Food Guide and Chennai Moore Market. Environmental Foundation of India organizes lake clean-ups and other environmental programs through a band of young volunteers.
Its founder Arun Krishanamurthy and his team are now engaged in creating an app — EFI: Know Your City - which is expected to lead residents to participate in such initiatives. It takes the most basic smartphone for a resident to use apps designed to influence authorities to improve civic facilities. Christopher Kost, technical director, Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, says some of these apps allow users to evaluate transport systems, roads, footpaths and other civic infrastructure.
‘Efficient mobility’ is a component of smart cities. A network of mass transit systems, made easy-to-use through technology, is the larger goal. However, residents can use technology hyper-locally, in smaller ways, for better mobility. Car-pooling in many Indian cities has not taken off, primarily due to security concerns and fear of the unknown. A car-pooling app customized for a small neighborhood could be a smart solution to this problem.
