IUDX is venturing into various sectors which could use a data exchange platform to mitigate multiple challenges and create solutions that would enhance efficiency, shares Dr. Inder Gopal, CEO, IUDX (India Urban Data Exchange) in an exclusive interview with Ritika Srivastava of Elets News Network (ENN). Edited Excerpts:
How has IUDX (India Urban Data Exchange) evolved over the years? It hasbeen almost 3 years since IUDX came into existence. Despite various challenges posed by COVID-19, we achieved all that we planned for the three-year timeframe. We started as an idea, which has now taken the form of an organisation with a strength of 50+ employees. Our presence has expanded to 35 smart cities and more cities will be joining soon. We have enabled a wide variety of use-cases in diverse areas such as traffic, transit, sanitation, flood and water management, etc that have delivered real value to citizens of these cities. We are also venturing into other sectors, which could use a data exchange platform to mitigate multiple challenges and create solutions that would enhance efficiency. In this short period of time, IUDX has helped to create the Architecture and API Specifications set that is now formally approved by the Bureau of Indian Standards for data exchange platforms. We have also created the International Data Exchange Alliance (IDEA) with FIWARE Foundation to facilitate the participation of industry in the development and exploitation of data exchange technologies. In short, we have evolved over the last few years from a technical concept to a robust platform and ecosystem creating strong value across the urban space.
How does IUDX help cities in India manage and utilise their data effectively?
IUDX gives Indian smart cities an opportunity to benefit from data driven innovation from entrepreneurs and the wider community. It helps them to step up and take control of their vast data resources, enabling improved function of their own departments as well as creating new sources of revenue. With the help of IUDX, cities will be able to reuse the code from successful smart city implementations reducing the development cost and time taken for it. Not just that. The implementations will not be vendor dependent as the standardised and open platform enables much greater flexibility and choice of vendors based on the evolving needs of the city. Also, as we progress in data-driven practices, cities will be able to monetize their data more effectively. It will also allow cities to broker third-party data and benefit from this brokerage.
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What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced in creating a data-sharing platform like IUDX, and how have you overcome them?
Data sharing is a new playing field in India. One of the biggest challenges faced by IUDX is the culture of data sharing in the country and the quality of data that is available. Also, due to the economic, educational, social, and ethnic diversity, the scale and scope of our problems are much higher in comparison to other countries. However, we have had ample support from the central government. They have been proactive in funding and advocating a data-driven model for urban governance; and also from the local bodies, who are willing to walk that extra mile to understand what IUDX brings to the table and support us in the deployment and execution of the use cases. The need of the hour is to educate and train personnel across the data sharing ecosystem to improve our understanding of the nature of a data economy.
Can you talk about some of the most successful projects or use cases of IUDX in action?
We currently have 6 use cases that have gone live in the 5 cities – Surat, Pune, Varanasi, Agartala and Vadodara. Surat has developed 2 mobile based apps, one for multimodal transport and the other that provides information on the exact arrival time and availability of seats on a particular bus, all in real-time. Pune launched IUDX based Safetipin app that shares real-time safety index based on diverse datasets, while Varanasi’s city sanitation department has adopted IUDX to accurately estimate wet and dry waste volumes using smartphone based sensors on their garbage trucks and optimise pick-ups solid waste pickups. In Vadodara, IUDX has helped create the infrastructure for creating on-demand green corridors anytime, anywhere with minimal disruption to regular traffic for emergency assistance. Meanwhile, Agartala has used the support of IUDX to reuse existing smart elements deployed in a city to integrate conventional traffic signals with ATCS network, an intelligent traffic management system that senses the changing traffic patterns around the traffic signal and other nearby junctions to generate an optimised cycle time plan. The effort and resources engaged in changing the conventional signals to ATCS are minimal as compared to installing a new ATCS.
In your opinion, what role do data and technology play in driving sustainable urban development in India?
Embracing sustainable business practices is no longer optional. The advantage of new and emerging technologies is that they offer multiple potentials and opportunities for innovation, which can help create a high quality of life and fuel sustainable economic development. Our cities are not equipped for the exponential growth they continue to see. Data-driven governance can help fill in the gaps by using data to generate business intelligence that would help to improve operational efficiencies. City Governments will be able to work with entrepreneurs, industry, and academia to promote participation in governance, co-creation and open innovation. This will enable greater civic engagement through directed partnerships and collaborations with external and parastatal government agencies, institutions, communities, academic, research, policy and civil society organizations.
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How does IUDX ensure data privacy and security, and what measures are in place to prevent misuse or unauthorized access to data?
Data privacy and security are paramount in building a reliable data sharing platform and IUDX has implemented a comprehensive portfolio of technologies to accomplish these goals. The IUDX data catalogue provides meta-data about datasets while enforcing controlled access to those datasets, including enforcing subscription, memberships or payment for access. Thus a policy-based access control system and associated standards to specify policy rules is integral to IUDX, permitting owners of data to retain full control of who, when and how that data can be accessed. To ensure the data itself is protected as it is transferred, the IUDX platform can operate without storing any data within the system, simply connecting the provider and consumers of data with secure end-end encrypted connections. IUDX is fully compliant with all cyber-security standards and best practices for cloud based systems and has been subjected to a comprehensive cyber-security audit by MeitY’s Standardization, Testing and Quality Control (STQC) organisation. In addition, we have engaged in a major research effort to employ state-of-the-art technologies such as differential privacy, secure enclaves and multi-party communication, to ensure suitable data privacy through anonymization and de-identification. We are creating a “de-identification filter” based on these technologies which can be layered above the data access API’s, automatically obscuring the ability to infer personal information from the dataset.
How do you see IUDX evolving in the future, and what are your plans to scale the platform further?
IUDX will continue to be deployed in more smart cities and support the Urban sector with more use cases and solutions. Though IUDX is designed as a general platform for data exchange, its core technology is applicable in other sectors such as Healthcare, Agriculture, Industrial, Financial and Education. We are exploring applicability in these sectors with the first one being Agriculture, where we are coming up with India’s first Agricultural Data Exchange (AdeX) in partnership with the Govt. of Telangana. In another project, we are working on creating an IUDX-powered e-Governance system for the Government of Chhattisgarh. This system would help address problems associated with the e-governance set up in the current scenario and will be fully digital, automated, proactive, and scalable.
On the technology front, we will ensure that we continue adhering to international standards, especially when it comes to security and privacy and work with the international community to adopt the best practices.
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