Technology, data handling critical for urban transformation

Technology is helping in enhancing our life experiences in cities and elsewhere. The growing use of ultramodern technology almost everywhere in our urban centres calls for enhanced capacity of municipal officials handling urban operations in cities

Innovation and creativity drive the lives of human beings. They always strive to make their lives easier. Humans have used their creativity in stinct to improve their quality of life and make it restful and comfortable for them using their analytical minds and intelligence. From rural settlements to high-rise metros, urban settlements have witnessed massive transformations through the ages. In today’s world, technology is the key driver of change. Another important aspect impacting humans’ lives these days is data collection and its use. It plays an ever-more significant role in quantifying and qualifying citizen service delivery, and as such, it is at the helm of most innovation projects within cities.
In the post-pandemic world, internet access has become essential for many services, including employment, education and health services. The pandemic underlined the importance of connectivity. Now it goes beyond just enabling internet access for people. It is also helping us improve urban systems at the policy and planning level.

Urban local bodies and data

City governments are responsible for managing a vast array of functions like waste management, water supply, mobility, education, housing and health to support industries, households and individuals. Most of these works are done individually by respective departments within the municipalities, but one thread connects them all. That is data. Municipal corporations, especially after the smart cities mission in 100 plus cities of India, are collecting data from users and other operations of the Urban Local Bodies that are being used to improve the efficiency of urban operations. However, data-driven governance still needs to be made common in our cities. There is a vast amount of data collection daily at the local level. However, most urban centres still need to gain an understanding of using the collected data for improving governance and delivery systems.
Data exchange between different departments within a municipality or among municipalities and other parastatal bodies is also a complex process. Cities must develop a system that can be used for real-time data sharing between departments. It can make data-use effective for service delivery improvements. Understanding that collected data could be another asset for cities, the Government of India, has developed India Urban Data Exchange (IUDX) is an open sources platform that facilitates secure, authenticated and managed exchange of data amongst various data platforms, third-party authenticated and authorised applications and other data sources, data producers and consumers, both within a city to begin with and scaled up across cities eventually at a national level, in a uniform & seamless way.
Creating data exchange solutions will ensure streamlined access and drive better data-driven decisions across the country. For making use of data, cities must prioritise the expected outcomes from data analysis and data use. Cities must assess their capacity to handle data and ensure it remains secure. Upskilling at the municipal level could be a challenging task if the local governments are going to use data regularly to assess their service delivery and governance. Data security is vital to ensure that citizens’ collected data is not misused and remain secure with the local bodies. It will be essential to build confidence in the minds of citizens that their data is in safe hands. Since it will be a beginning of a sort, ensuring data security will be critical for the success of the projects in urban centres across the country. The government of India has come out with a report, Datasmart Cities: Empowering cities through data can referred to understand the requirements at the local level and the benefit they can draw from such an initiative. The report has highlighted some of the best usages of the data in different parts of the world and how it is changing the lives of citizens.

Urban initiatives

Many cities are devising unique methods and systems to engage citizens in local planning and budgeting using technology and data. Quito, the capital city of Ecuador, developed a platform called Mi Ciudad. It shares data about the city – including services, infrastructure and budget allocation. The platform enables more citizen participation. A percentage of the municipal budget is assigned to the projects proposed by citizens at neighbourhood assemblies. A similar programme is running in Boston, the United States of America, where youth give suggestions on the projects the city should take up. Over 2000 youngsters aged between 12-25 decide, through voting on project ideas, how to spend one million dollars of the city’s budget. Another initiative of The Boston city government is CityScore.
According to a report, it is an online dashboard showing how the city government performs against its targets in 24 areas – from sign placement to emergency call response, garbage collection, and pothole repairs. Daily activity updates make performance and progress transparent to the public and city administrators. A single, combined number summarises how the administration is performing overall. Dublin and Melbourne are among the cities leading the way in making their data publicly available for businesses and citizens to use and providing tools for visualisation and analysis. Melbourne decided to make available data it has collected for many years on areas such as land use and pedestrian movements; Dublin’s website Dublinked is a partnership of local authorities and the National University of Ireland.
Cities in India are at an advantage as the world’s largest IT Industry is in their backyards. They can take their assistance in upskilling their existing staff, collaborate for new application development, or sign a long-term pact for long-term arrangement. For that, every city must first assess its needs and the kind of data itss want to own. The next phase would be using the data to improve citizens’ lives and the municipality’s operations.

For data use, cities must prioritise the expected outcomes from data analysis and data use. Cities must assess their capacity to handle data and ensure it remains secure. Upskilling at the municipal level could be a challenging task if the local governments are going to use data regularly for assessing their service delivery and governance