Jaipur to be the First Lighthouse City of South Asia

City of Jaipur First Lighthouse City of India

An announcement that came this Wednesday, confirmed that City of Jaipur is going to be the first Lighthouse city of South Asia. It would join the list of smartly connected communities by becoming one of the Cisco Lighthouse cities in the world. Some other Cisco Lighthouse cities are Hamburg in Germany, Barcelona in Spain and Adelaide in Australia. And now another name would be added to this list – ‘Jaipur in India’.

In order to support Jaipur’s vision of rising as a global model and standard for sustainable urban development, the Cisco Lighthouse City Society is collaborating with Jaipur. At the same time, even the Jaipur Development Authority (JDA) has opted for developing smart city like infrastructures in Jaipur. Advanced infrastructure would assist in improving the efficiency and quality of services provided to the 3.5 million residents in the city and also to the 40+ million tourists, who visit the city every year.

In the words of Vasundhara Raje

“This is the first step towards realising the vision of digital Rajasthan”, said Honourable Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje. She claimed that Jaipur has been chosen by the Cisco Lighthouse City Society because of the rapid transformation and modernisations the city has undergone in the last couple of years. She also credited the city authorities for implementing many advanced citizen-centric solutions in the past two years.

With the announcement of Jaipur becoming the first Lighthouse city of South Asia, the people of Jaipur would get access to Cisco’s vast global network and channel program capabilities. The city would undergo a number of economic and social transformations, once the next phase of the Digital India program begins in the country.

Need of Technological Soundness

It is time to think of the growing role of technology so as to make the development of socially, economically and environmentally sustainable communities possible. This is necessary there is cut-throat competition among cities when it comes to the best talent, great businesses, right investment and expanding tourism opportunities. For developing Jaipur as a smart connected community, the most important point is ‘technology’. New services can only be developed and provided to the public if you are equipped with competent technology at the centre to manage everything systematically.

Innovation Centre at Jaipur

Other than Cisco’s plan to make Jaipur a Lighthouse city, several leading names in the field of technology such as Qualcomm technologies, General Electrical and 3M India Limited, have also announced to launch an innovation centre at Jaipur. This innovation centre would be housed & operated by Genpact and hosted by JDA. It would team up with start-ups, developers, government agencies and academic communities to help in accelerating the development of Internet of Everything (IOE) based solutions in Jaipur.