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Pune Smart City Development Corporation Limited (PSCDCL) along with its subsidiary Pune Idea Factory Foundation co-partnered by City Futures, University of New South Wales, Sydney and Plus Alliance held a Workshop to explore the theme “Exploring Pune as a Living Lab -Digital City.”

The Workshop highlighted on the next generation of data driven methods and decision-support systems focused on transport and accessibility, and urban environment addressing local and global challenges around sustainability technology and resilience.

With an array of keynote addresses and panel discussions on the various areas pertaining to the key themes participated by PSCDCL, UNSW professors and researchers and Vice Chancellor of Pune University as well as industry members working towards Smart City Mission.

Prof Chris Pettit, UNSW Australia; Prof Frank Kelly, Kings College London, UK; Dr David King, Arizona State University, USA; Dr Rajendra Jagtap, CEO, PSCDCL; Manojit Bose Chief Knowledge Officer, PSCDCL and other delegates from the public and private sectors were few of the key speakers for this workshop.

The workshop began with a welcome address by Dr Jagtap. He gave an overview of key impactful projects and the importance and implementation of integration of data with the Command and Control Centre thus innovatively breaking away from the silhoes that have been created by various agencies that hold data repository. “We need to mobilise data from various sources and utilise it for betterment of society. We need to treat the city as Living Lab,” he said.

Also Read: PSCDCL to host Workshop on Planning Smart, Healthy and Accessible Cities in Pune

Dr Karmalkar stressed on the association of PSCDCL with SPPU mentioned that Pune University has been acting as a Living Lab for PSCDCL as many Smart City Projects were first piloted and implemented in the Pune University campus. “Pune University has actually acted as a Living Lab for PSCDCL as many Pune Smart City projects are tested and implemented in Pune University campus,” he stated.

Dr Raghunath Mashelkar, Padma Vibhushan, Former DG of CSIR and Chief Guest said, “Talent, technology and tolerance are the three elements that distinguish Pune from other cities thus making it into a favourable destination for global organisations to come and work in the city.”

In his vote of thanks, Bose stated, “Pune Smart City has been undertaking several initiatives in leveraging data and technology to drive innovation in partnership with academia, industry and various other organisations. Living Lab is a new concept in Indian context and is the next logical step for all the various efforts which Pune Smart City has been undertaking. In this context, partnering with the world-renowned PLUS Alliance is a matter of privilege for us.”

Also Read: “Without Smart City initiatives it would have been tough to effectively fight with COVID19”: Dr Rajendra Jagtap

Other key panellists included a mix of speakers from industry, academia as well as the Government. Some names included Pankaj Deshmukh IPS, DCP Traffic, Pune Police; Suveer Sinha, Partner, McKinsey & Company; Dipakshi Mahendru, Senior Advisor and Public Policy, Dell; Sanjay Set, CEO, GRIHA Council, Prof. Amrutur Bharadwaj, Proffessor, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore; Amol Chaphekar, MD, Strata Group among others.

The panellists spoke on various topics that included Smart City and Living Lab Nexus, Environment and Livability in a Smart City, Living Lab in Pune, Addressing Transport & Mobility Challenges with Big Data and Smart Cities- A use case perspective.

The Workshop was supported by L&T Construction, NASSCOM, Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), NITI Aayog and the Smart Cities Mission of Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.

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