Microsoft India has announced the launch of its CityNext in the country. CityNext is an initiative to enable city residents and city leaders to use technology to build a foundation for sustainable growth and prosperity. Microsoft has identified more than 40 solution areas across eight city domains – Energy and water, buildings; Infrastructure and planning, Transportation, Public safety and justice; Tourism, recreation and culture; Education; Health and Social services and government administration — that help address 90% of the challenges cities faces today.
CityNext addresses these areas through the vast and diverse Microsoft Partner Network of more than 430,000 technology experts across the globe. In India, Tata Consultancy Services and Wipro are working with Microsoft for this initiative, with other leading system integrators also joining the CityNext ecosystem.
Bhaskar Pramanik, Chairman, Microsoft India said, “By 2030, India will have more than 69 cities with a population of more than one million. In fact, an estimated 590 million people will be living in cities. As India prepares to modernize old infrastructure, city leaders have to meet these growing demands with tight budgets and greater citizen expectations.”
“Microsoft’s CityNext puts people first and builds on a new infrastructure of collaborative technology to engage citizens, businesses and Government leaders to do ‘new with less’. We are excited about the possibilities this opens up to help enable cities compete effectively on a global scale and foster economic, social and environmental sustainability,” Pramanik added.
Tanmoy Chakrabarty, Vice President and Head of Government Business, TCS commented, “Today, the cities which are on a journey towards modernization face many challenges. Our work with Microsoft can help these cities find the right combination of investments, solutions, partnerships and social programs. This will enable them to attract business, build more vibrant city landscapes and competitive economies.”
Commenting on the launch, Partha Sarathi Guha Patra, Vice President & Head Corporate Affairs, Wipro Limited said, “Indian city leaders are increasingly looking at how they can drive cohesive and uniform city-wide development. Microsoft’s CityNext is an important initiative that Governments and Public enterprises can leverage to achieve this objective.”
Cities are centers of industrial, economic and entrepreneurial activity and at the same time, they increasingly encounter compelling forces, such as rapid urbanization, modernization mandates, and economic austerity pressures. CityNext helps city administrators create a comprehensive and robust technology framework by integrating existing citizen centric solutions and providing access to them via the cloud, social and mobile.
It also allows city administrators to monitor the key metrics of their city through customized analytics and dashboards. CityNext empowers people in government, businesses and the community to build more sustainable cities across economic, environmental and social spheres.
Microsoft and its partner ecosystem are uniquely positioned to deliver secure devices, services and solutions across domains, anchored around three key pillars: transforming operations and infrastructure; engaging citizens and businesses; and accelerating innovation and opportunity.
In India, the deployment of Microsoft Dynamics AX (2009) by the Delhi Integrated Multi-Modal Transit System Ltd. improved its efficiency, reduced costs and eliminated redundant manual processes. After deployment, the organization benefitted from better control, improved financial and human resources management, and ability to administrate revenues.
Other examples of citizen-centric projects involving Microsoft technologies and partners are CCTNS (Crime and Criminal Tracking Network System) project and the eight million Live@Edu accounts (as of June 30, 2013) in many of the 10,000 technical colleges and institutes under All India Council for Technical Education.
In other parts of the world, Microsoft and partners help several cities address their most pressing issues in a modern and innovative manner. One example is the City of Barcelona, which has a long-established global reputation for innovation. Barcelona has been working with Microsoft and its partners in a number of key initiatives. These include an enhanced virtual desktop infrastructure for field employees supported by the Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8 operating systems.
