JUNE
2022
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PETER HERWECK, CEO AVEVA.
AVEVA and India’s
smart cities
AVEVA has partnered with smart city initiatives in India and is providing solutions from hub to edge through its Unified Operations Centre.
SUPERCHARGING INDIA’S DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
Integrated data center infrastructure and enterprise technology player
Part of the real estate, infrastructure and energy major Hiranandani Group
Services delivered from state-of-the-art data center facility
As-a-Service product line up
Yotta Colocation Solutions
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Yotta offers a host of colocation solutions and a comprehensive suite of managed IT services.
Yotta provides comprehensive cloud services including public (IaaS, SaaS, PaaS), private and hybrid cloud.
CLOUD POWERED EVERYTHING AS-A-SERVICE PORTFOLIO FOR ENTERPRISES
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For more information, visit us at www.yotta.com or write to marketing@yotta.com
EDITORIAL
TRANSFORMING URBAN COMMUNITIES MANAGING DIRECTOR Tushar Sahoo tushar@gecmediagroup.com CHIEF EDITOR Arun Shankar arun@gecmediagroup.com CEO Ronak Samantaray ronak@gecmediagroup.com GLOBAL HEAD, CONTENT AND STRATEGIC ALLIANCES Anushree Dixit anushree@gecmediagroup.com EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR GEC MEDIA GROUP CO-FOUNDER, BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION ASIA Sundip Sibal Sundip@gecmediagroup.com GROUP SALES HEAD Richa S richa@gecmediagroup.com PROJECT MANAGER Anshuman Jyothiprakash anshuman@gecmediagroup.com EVENTS EXECUTIVE Gurleen Rooprai gurleen@gecmdiagroup.com Jennefer Lorraine Mendoza jennefer@gecmdiagroup.com SALES AND ADVERTISING Ronak Samantaray ronak@gecmediagroup.com DIGITAL TEAM Deepika Chauhan - Digital Content Lead Vijay Bakshi - IT Manager Hemant Bisht - SEO & Digital Marketing Analyst BUSINESS LEAD Ankit Vats ankit@gecmediagroup.com Ph: +91-9999756403 DESIGNED BY
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With a backing of $13 billion, the Indian Smart Cities Mission was launched by the Indian government in 2015. Its focus is supporting investments in technology to drive sustainable, economic, and urban growth for 100 model cities around the country. Successful cities were selected following completion of the countrywide Smart Cities challenge, in which entrants imagined their ideal future and created a roadmap for harnessing the potential of data. In this month’s lead feature, we look at smart city implementations in Kohima, Namchi and Nava Raipur in India. All the three chose to use a common technology platform to integrate key civic and municipal functions. A key solution in all these implementations has been AVEVA’s Unified Operations Centre. AVEVA’s Unified Operations Centre is the digital backbone of the command centre. It helps the city realise sustainable improvements in energy efficiency and quality of life, with controlled city traffic, smart street lighting, city pollution monitoring and control, smart surveillance, and a Wi-Fi enabled community notification service. Over the course of the pandemic, AVEVA systems kept India’s civic services running, says Emon Zaman from AVEVA Asia Pacific. The seven urban regions where AVEVA has partnered in the Indian Smart Cities Mission, includes Nava Raipur, Namchi, Kohima, and more recently, Gangtok; Pune-Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation; Rajkot, and Navi Mumbai. As part of the Indian Smart Cities Mission, other cities will apply the Smart City Integrated Command Centre solution to their own Smart City plans and aspirations. A unified operations centre can serve as a centralised, single-window view to help all parties involved make informed decisions. The command-and-control centre and digital twins are just lenses that develop the understanding of a smart city. Technologies only begin to deliver value when combined with human insight and capability, in the hands of the connected worker Digital transformation initiatives have underscored the critical role of technology in facilitating the smart city of the future. Connecting information and process with a common digital thread that extends across the urban value chain s critical to the success of any smart city initiative. Turn these pages for more on these exciting transformation initiatives. After eight successful editions of The Future IT Summit in the Middle East, GEC Media Group is expanding its footprints in India with The Future IT Summit Asia Edition in six metropolitan cities including Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Bhubaneswar and Pune. The focus continues to be on technology, process and people transformation. Along with this monthly publication, we are releasing a quarterly supplement on people transformation focussed on wellness.
Over the course of the pandemic, AVEVA systems kept India’s civic services running
Looking forward to your engagement during this six-city roadshow.
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CONTENTS JUNE 2022
03 EDITORIAL
06-11
12-13
15-29
OPINION
INNOVATION GALLERY
NEWS
30 TECHNOLOGY TRANSFORMATION Why IT performance is impacting DX
35-63
COVER STORY
42
SMART CITIES IN INDIA
COVER FEATURE
Smart cities must bounce back from disasters
44 COVER FEATURE
Leveraging Infrastructure 4.0 for smart cities
65-71
72-75
76
INDUSTRY COMMENT
SOCIALLY SPEAKING
LOOKING GLASS
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OPINION
RELEARNING SOFTWARE VERSUS LEARNING INDUSTRY This is the race to digitalisation between industry incumbents who re-learn software and software companies mostly start-ups who learn an industry.
BY DR STEFAN SIGG Chief Research and Development Officer, Software AG.
T
he world of newbusiness building is highly industryspecific and even customer-specific. This means that probably the core value-generating software part needs to be developed by your own company - or by close partners. One issue with this new type of enterprise software is that it’s potential for standardisation is very low, perhaps even zero. In contrast, traditional business software use cases like accounting are typically very well-defined and standardised in ERP packages. A fundamental challenge for most enterprises is that they do not have or have lost the ability to create their own software in a scalable manner. Over the last decades, many IT organisations morphed into software operations teams with comparably low need for training to perform large software development projects.
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This is a consequence of the huge success story of standardised business software, delivered by SAP, Oracle, Salesforce, and the like. In the early days of software, companies were building their own business applications on top of some basic technologies such as a database and an application-oriented programming language. In the past, we saw huge software development departments with deep knowledge and skills create some complex software. But this muscle vanished over time. Hence, the impact of the current wave of digital transformation means they need to train this muscle again, on an even higher level of mission criticality. Building up experience and robust processes takes a lot of time and often involves a succession of failed projects. But the challenge is not only about internal abilities, it’s also about external threats. This is the race to digitalisation between industry incumbents who relearn software and software companies mostly start-ups who learn an industry. Amazon for example is not really a retailer; it is, was a software start-up that realised the potential of e-commerce, built a software platform, and taught itself how to sell books. It solved a technology challenge and learned enough industry knowledge. There is also a cultural dimension to that. Digital transformation can also radically change the relevance and
importance of previously key roles in organisations. In the case of the catalogue retailers, for example, the role of the chief procurement officer, who decides which products make it into the catalogue and which do not. This decision heavily influenced commercial success. The role was recognised and held a lot of influence. Amazon, the new iteration of a catalogue retailer, sells virtually everything. The role of the chief procurement officer has vanished overnight. New roles with entirely different skill profiles are created. The person who is responsible for the user experience of an online store website must understand and improve the way customers are searching and finding products. Another example is Tesla. A software company that taught itself how to build cars around a computer. From a car manufacturer’s view, these cars fall behind some of the traditional quality criteria, such as the legendary Spaltmass gap. Tesla cars may not live up to the traditional car standards but live up to managing the CO2 footprint and digital experiences inside the car. Tesla is a car company in the way Apple is a phone company. Successful industry players have been attacked by new companies that sourced their disruptive energy from software expertise. What does this mean for all the other industries? They too must build and leverage more software. To do this, they need to get a digital backbone.
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OPINION
MAPPING YOUR ORGANISATION’S BUSINESS WITH CYBERSECURITY THREATS The vision of a business will drive its innovation, whilst its baseline ofsecurity practices will help to protect the organisation as it moves forward. further identifying the surface and landscape through which they are the most vulnerable to internal and external attacks.
CROWN JEWELS, DATA, AND ASSETS
BY DAVID BROWN Security Operations Director from Axon Technologies.
M
ajor cybersecurity attacks and their impacts are being reported daily by global media. However, many of these attacks, are often a consequence of a series of operational lapses and oversights at the targeted enterprise.
INNOVATION AND SECURITY PRACTICES
The vision and strength of a business will drive its innovation forward, whilst its baseline of investing and building security practices will help to protect the organisation as it moves forward. However, most organisations struggle to balance these two worlds. Or in other words, struggle to effectively balance innovative business operations with security safeguards needed to protect them. A typical forward-looking discovery process would be the classification of an organisation’s crown jewels, foot printing their visibility, and
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Moving forward, innovative business practices are generally always built around the core competence of an organisation, typically referred to as the crown jewels of an organisation. It is therefore vital to identify these crown jewels in terms of tangible assets and information that matter the most to the business and its customers so that they can be protected and safeguarded. These are identified and pinpointed by involving business heads to validate the assets and data that matter, the operational processes that create this data and embody the assets, and acceptable levels of business risk around these data and assets. They are also the assets that are most critical for the accomplishment of an organisation’s mission. Once these assets and data are identified, knowing their significance for the business, they will be of value to an attacker, and if compromised will have a business impact.
DIGITAL FOOTPRINTS
Further to the identification of the crown jewels’ assets and data, the next step is to give them digital footprints. The process of creating digital footprints consolidates all assets, internal and external, known and unknown, into a manageable mapped inventory.
Since they have been mapped, their security vulnerabilities are exposed and therefore profiles can be built on the basis of relevance, context, and capability. Digital footprints find areas such as expired domain names, expired SSL certificates, forgotten cloud servers or buckets, demo web services left running, exposed services, and ports. A digital footprint gives visibility beyond the network boundary into areas that may create data loss. This process consolidates Internet-exposed assets, both known and unknown, into a manageable inventory.
ATTACK SURFACE, THE THREAT LANDSCAPE
Amongst the suggested measures to reduce the attack surface are to limit the amount of code running; cut down entry points for untrusted users; shut down services requested by only a few users; eliminate services identified that may not be required. However, reducing the attack surface does not lower the amount of damage an attacker can inflict if a vulnerability is found. The threat landscape is an assessment of risks and exposure based on a specific organisation and industry. It is meant to be less technical and to support high-level decisionmakers through reports and briefings. The strategic intelligence should provide patterns in threat actor tactics and targets, and geopolitical events and trends.
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OPINION
GOVERNMENTS MUST UNDER PROMISE, OVERDELIVER, IN BLOCKCHAIN Some blockchain initiatives are less efficient or effective in getting to an outcome when compared to alternative technologies or approaches.
BY ARTHUR MICKOLEIT Director Analyst, Gartner.
G
overnments worldwide have been trialling blockchain initiatives as a transparent and secure solutions for transactions or digital interactions. By using blockchain, governments can permanently store asset data and transactions pertaining to land, property, businesses and vehicles on a public ledger, guaranteeing data integrity and high levels of security. The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees in Germany is piloting the use of blockchain to allow coordination of asylum procedures across a wide network of relevant agencies and institutions. The United Nations has developed a blockchain-based service to validate pension entitlements of its retirees around the globe. However, the largest number of governments blockchain projects remain in experimentation or exploration mode.
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Prior to this year, there were far more public-sector blockchain projects in pilot or proof of concept than implemented into production or in production, according to the Gartner 2020 survey of blockchain consultancy and technical service providers. In 2021, the bulk of government initiatives 73% were in an exploration or a piloting phase with uncertain outcomes, according to a sample of 87 government projects. This is because some blockchain initiatives are less efficient or effective in getting to an outcome when compared to alternative technologies or approaches. In fact, Finland realised this around its MONI financial assistance scheme for asylum seekers. In addition, public blockchain technologies are diverse, and most of them are still insufficiently mature. The 2021 Gartner Hype Cycle for Blockchain shows that 70% of technologies listed are still at or before the peak of hype. To get projects moving, try to reduce the pressure to deliver tangible results by setting initial expectations deliberately low. This is true especially for governments with less of a track record in this area. It is better to underpromise and potentially overdeliver, considering that most public-sector blockchain initiatives today still serve exploration and capacity building. Gartner predicted that by
2021, at least 5% of government entities would adopt blockchain as a transparent, authoritative ledger for some official records. Several blockchainbased registers have moved into large-scale piloting or even production, such as the Verifiable Organisations Networkbusiness register in Canada, or the land and real estate registers in the country of Georgia and India’s state of Telangana. Government leaders must be realistic about the largely uncertain outcomes of their blockchain projects. Focus on pragmatic blockchain use cases means identifying use cases that have the greatest chance of taking a blockchain project beyond the POC phase. Success also requires exploring alliances to extract long-term value from blockchain engagement. The German federal government is facilitating cross-industry consortia to explore different digital identity uses of the future, including decentralised and self-sovereign identities SSI. Collaborating as part of an alliance helps every involved actor move beyond the narrow value of private enterprise blockchain initiatives. Above all, before embarking on any blockchain project, conduct a blockchain relevance test to determine the suitability of blockchain for the given initiative, and determine the optimal technologies for supporting any use case.
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OPINION
PREDICTING PERFORMANCE DEGRADATIONS BEFORE THEY HAPPEN The answer lies in Asset Performance Management, a set of technologies that can monitor assets to identify, diagnose, and prioritise equipment problems.
BY MATT NEWTON Director, Artificial Intelligence and Optimisation, AVEVA.
T
he industrial sector is in the midst of its biggest disruption in decades. It is critical for organisations to reduce production loss while extending equipment life – efficiencies that can help businesses achieve operational excellence. But how can this be achieved? The answer lies in Asset Performance Management, APM – a set of technologies and practices that can monitor assets to identify, diagnose, and prioritise impending equipment problems – continuously and in real time. Well-executed APM empowers organisations to reduce unscheduled downtime, prevent equipment failures, reduce maintenance costs, improve asset utilisation, and identify underperforming assets to support overall business objectives. At the heart of APM is the concept of maximising profitability by balancing risk, cost, and performance of the plant, of the assets, and of the people that are operating all those things. In the last two years, many companies have undergone
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digital transformation to foster corporate agility and resilience amid an increasingly dynamic business landscape. As such, the concept of APM is also evolving. The intersection of Industry 4.0, Industrial Internet of Things IIoT, and technologies such as AI, predictive maintenance, cloud, big data, and mobility, are bringing assets to the forefront of the business. By leveraging APM 4.0, assets can be transformed from cost centres into powerful drivers of revenue and profitability. APM 4.0 is predicated on proactive asset performance management, enabled by predictive alerts and prescriptive analytics.These types of technologies can lower costs, while optimising labour usage and equipment performance. Through the use of predictive and prescriptive analytics, companies can implement strategies that avoid unplanned downtime for their most critical assets – while also deciding which preventative or corrective asset strategy is the best course of action to take for their less vital equipment. APM 4.0 creates a single integrated digital thread across the complete asset lifecycle. Two key factors play a pivotal role in the implementation of an effective APM strategy: l First, there must be connectivity among assets and workers. l Second, decisions that are informed by sensors and intelligent data must be able to be executed in real-time. In stark contrast to the widely used – and typically lagging –
indicators that report failures only after they occur, today’s APM 4.0 systems can use sensor data to predict performance degradations and component failures before they happen. Predictive and prescriptive analytics have the power to utilise sensor data to make better decisions – creating significant opportunities to improve asset performance. However, it’s also important to understand that it is not always feasible to invoke predictive strategies to mitigate asset risks or optimise performance. For some assets, it might not be financially feasible to apply predictive strategies because the cost of the cure might be more expensive than the value of the benefit – such as planned downtime. In order to implement an effective APM 4.0 solution, the owner operator should utilise predictive and prescriptive analytics within a wider asset risk management strategy. While companies are close to achieving APM 4.0, others may not be quite sure where they should begin their adoption journey. It’s important to remember that embarking on the transition from reactive maintenance to a more proactive or predictive strategy is a process. In many cases, the organisation’s culture is the biggest obstacle to overcome. In a reactive environment, firefightingmaintenance is valued, but in a proactive environment, the strategy should focus on preventing fires from erupting in the first place.
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OPINION
EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE TO REPLACE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
While customer experience is no less important than it has been, in 2022 employee experience will take centre stage and it simply must.
M
uch of what is taking place in services is a continuation and maturation of key trends. This is because we are at a level of sophistication with technology and innovation in service that the excitement is not in any singular next big thing. It is in the nuance of mastering the
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layers of change that come with ongoing evolution and transformation. While customer experience is no less important than it has been, in 2022 employee experience will take centre stage. It simply must. The Great Resignation will force companies to reflect on everything from their company culture to the strength and quality of
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OPINION
BY SARAH NICASTRO VP of Customer Advocacy, IFS.
KEY TAKEAWAYS Digital is not something that needs to be done, but rather something that needs to become a part of each company’s identity. Eliminating siloes, combining disjointed approaches and strategies, and moving beyond fragmented systems and tools. Service organisations need to re-evaluate how they are doing business and how they are talking about service. Companies need to equip themselves with the technological underpinnings that allow for guaranteed outcomes.
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their leadership to the employee value proposition to how much or how little opportunity exists for career development, and much more. Organisations will be forced to take responsibility to get more creative in how – and whom – they hire. Leaders will need to do and give more in the form of mentorship, encouragement, and recognition. The masses are realizing that the stellar customer experience they aim to deliver is impossible without engaged and satisfied employees. In 2022, service organisations must do what it takes to understand what employees want and need to be happy and they must work tirelessly to deliver that. From a technology perspective, software has the potential to act as a great enabler or a massive deterrent. This is evident not least in the ability for workers to efficiently carry out their jobs, but even more so in the experience and satisfaction levels created by the software. A platform that offers an intuitive UI and consumer grade experience while also providing meaningful insights, and access to remote resources at the touch of a button will significantly improve your employees’ experience.
DIGITAL IDENTITIES
In 2022, service organisations will gain more clarity around the digital continuum. Digital is not something that needs to be done, but rather something that needs to become a part of each company’s identity. This means eliminating siloes, combining disjointed approaches and strategies, and moving beyond fragmented systems and tools. Digital as a part of a company’s identity means it is within the business’ DNA. It is part of every conversation, every function, every role. Digital leadership is strong and digital
reputation is considered. Digital is being leveraged to streamline internal operations in a way that enables the best customer experience as well as efficiency, and it’s being used externally as a part of a company’s value proposition. As a company masters a foundational level of capability, they look for layers of sophistication and intelligence to layer on.
SERVICE VALUE
Customers do not want service. They want uptime, outcomes, peace of mind. They want the complexity that goes into making it work to be invisible. They do not want to buy things – they want knowledge and insights and perspective that helps them be and do better. Whether we refer to this evolution as Servitisation, the move to delivering outcomes, As-a-Service, or the subscription economy, it means that service organisations need to re-evaluate how they are doing business and how they are talking about service. Companies need to equip themselves with the technological underpinnings that allow for guaranteed outcomes and need to be reconsidering their identity. This evolution is not possible without first releasing all legacy thinking and habitual practices and focusing objectively on what your customers are seeking. It is also not possible without the technological sophistication that allows for impeccable asset intelligence and data collection, optimal utilisation of resources, a seamless customer experience, and the ability to derive business intelligence that feeds new value propositions. This journey is not one that can happen overnight, but in 2022 we will see more companies take leaps and bounds of progress because the market simply demands it.
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INNOVATION GALLERY
AMD DELIVERS 20% IMPROVEMENT IN COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS FOR F1 Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team has showcased how AMD EPYC processors have improved aerodynamics testing capacity, contributing to the Mercedes-AMG Petronas team winning its eighth Constructors’ Championship in the 2021 racing season. By using AMD EPYC processors, the team was able to achieve a 20% performance improvement for computational fluid dynamics workloads that were used to model and test aerodynamic flow of their F1 car. For F1 teams, having the most effective computational analysis of aerodynamics can mean the difference between winning and losing a race. With AMD EPYC processors, the Mercedes-AMG F1 team can iterate on vehicle design faster and more efficiently than their previous system. By using AMD EPYC processors, the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 team is pushing the boundaries of what is possible with computational fluid dynamics by developing groundbreaking aerodynamics while delivering the price-performance required to meet budget regulations put in place by the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile.
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INNOVATION GALLERY
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NEWS
Broadcom to acquire VMware for Approximately $61 Billion in Cash and Stock Broadcom, a global technology leader that designs, develops and supplies semiconductor and infrastructure software solutions, and VMware, a leading innovator in enterprise software, announced an agreement under which Broadcom will acquire all of the outstanding shares of VMware in a cash-and-stock transaction that values VMware at approximately $61 billion, based on the closing price of Broadcom common stock on May 25, 2022. In addition, Broadcom will assume $8 billion of VMware net debt. VMware, a leading provider of multi-cloud services for all apps, pioneered virtualisation technology, an innovation that positively transformed x86 serverbased computing. VMware then created the software-defined data center and played a leading role in virtualising networking and storage, before evolving to become a hybrid cloud and digital workspace leader. Today, VMware’s multi-cloud portfolio, spanning application modernisation, cloud management, cloud infrastructure, networking, security and anywhere workspaces, forms a flexible, consistent digital foundation on which the largest and most dynamic enterprises across industries build, run, manage, connect and protect their most important and complex workloads for the benefit of their customers. Following the closing of the transaction, the Broadcom Software Group will rebrand and operate as VMware, incorporating
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MICHAEL DELL
Chairman of the VMware Board.
Broadcom’s existing infrastructure and security software solutions as part of an expanded VMware portfolio. By bringing together the complementary Broadcom Software portfolio with the leading VMware platform, the combined company will provide enterprise customers an expanded platform of critical infrastructure solutions to accelerate innovation and address the most complex information technology infrastructure needs. The combined solutions will enable customers, including leaders in all industry verticals, greater choice and flexibility to build, run, manage, connect and protect applications at scale across diversified, distributed environments, regardless of where they run: from the data center, to any cloud and to edge-computing. With the combined company’s shared focus on technology innovation and significant research and development expenditures, Broadcom will deliver compelling benefits for customers and partners. Hock Tan, President and Chief Executive Officer of Broadcom, said, “Building upon our proven track record of successful M&A, this transaction combines our leading semiconductor
and infrastructure software businesses with an iconic pioneer and innovator in enterprise software as we reimagine what we can deliver to customers as a leading infrastructure technology company. We look forward to VMware’s talented team joining Broadcom, further cultivating a shared culture of innovation and driving even greater value for our combined stakeholders, including both sets of shareholders.” Raghu Raghuram, Chief Executive Officer of VMware, said, “VMware has been reshaping the IT landscape for the past 24 years, helping our customers become digital businesses. We stand for innovation and unwavering support of our customers and their most important business operations and now we are extending our commitment to exceptional service and innovation by becoming the new software platform for Broadcom. Combining our assets and talented team with Broadcom’s existing enterprise software portfolio, all housed under the VMware brand, creates a remarkable enterprise software player. Collectively, we will deliver even more choice, value and innovation to customers, enabling them to thrive in this increasingly complex multi-cloud era.”
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NEWS
Triton EV acquired AMW Motors manufacturing facility Triton EV is moving ahead on top gear to enter Indian roads. Today, the company is proud to announce that it has acquired the AMW’s Manufacturing Plant in Bhuj, Gujarat. This 3.7 Million Square foot manufacturing plant infrastructure will become the epicentre of EV Truck Manufacturing Hub by Triton EV. This acquisition by Triton EV will ensure a fast track of Triton EV Truck Production and the production will start from this year itself. “We are happy and excited to acquire this manufacturing facility as this acquisition is giving us a great edge of producing a best in class and India’s first EV Truck which will be a complete a ‘Make in India’ Product. The Triton EV Manufacturing hub in Bhuj Gujarat will also be Asia’s biggest and most comprehensive EV manufacturing facility with complete end-to-end manufacturing of an EV truck will be possible,” said, Himanshu B Patel, Founder and Managing Director, Triton EV. The first Triton EV Truck will be able to come out of the factory within this calendar year.
This acquisition by Triton EV is also bringing relief for the AMW’s employees who lost their jobs with the closure of the Manufacturing plant. The Triton EV Manufacturing Hub will produce every critical component for the truck. From Chasis Manufacturing to battery to testing everything will happen from this facility at Bhuj, Gujarat. The hub will have top of the line auto manufacturing organisations as part of the ecosystem. One of the leading name in this is of Bharat Electronics Limited which will be responsible for the manufacturing of batteries for EVs.
BMW India Showcases the ‘Future of Mobility’ at India Art Fair Showcasing the unique connection between art and automobiles, BMW Group India will exhibit the ‘Future of Mobility’ at the latest edition of India Art Fair being held in New Delhi from 28 April to 1 May 2022. Vikram Pawah, President, BMW Group India said, “Art is a beautiful way of seeing the world as it was, is and will be tomorrow. More than ever, India Art Fair reflects a unique blend of art, creativity and a strong awareness of evolving socio-ecological sensibilities. In the same way, BMW Group’s pioneering vision is reflected through its vehicles. Our electric vehicles are an expression of a sustainable future. Just like an artist develops a work around a central theme, BMW Group develops its e-vehicles around the core of sustainability – in form, function and emotion. As Joy is reborn, we are excited to share our vision with the world. The BMW iX and MINI Cooper SE have already won the hearts of auto enthusiasts in India. We invite everyone to come and experience the face of progressive e-mobility at India Art Fair.” As the ‘Presenting Partner’ of the India Art Fair, BMW India has supported the evolution and exposure of modern Indian art and artists since 2012. Through this year’s collaboration, BMW India will exhibit progressive e-mobility with an exclusive display of its
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(Left to Right) Jaya Asokan, Fair Director of India Art Fair and Vikram Pawah, President, BMW Group India.
all-electric range. The BMW iX is the first electric all-wheel drive vehicle by BMW. As BMW Group’s new technology flagship, it presents hallmark ‘Sheer Driving Pleasure’ with commitment to sustainability. Born electric, the iX imbibes principles of sustainability throughout its lifecycle, right from production to usage to endof-life, making comprehensive use of natural and recyclable materials. MINI is displaying the first all-electric MINI 3-Door Cooper SE at India Art Fair. The MINI 3-Door Cooper SE combines MINI’s inventive spirit and iconic design with instant torque, zero emissions and legendary gokart feeling. It will play a significant role in inspiring creative individuals and trendsetters to drive the silent revolution. In addition to the BMW iX and MINI Cooper SE, BMW Group India is displaying another muchawaited upcoming all-electric product.
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NEWS
Social Alpha to support innovations in waste management Social Alpha has joined hands with the H&M Foundation for the Saamuhika Shakti Initiative, and the JSW Foundation to support start-ups developing solutions in Waste Management. The 2nd edition of the nationwide grand challenge called ‘TechtonicInnovations in Circular Economy’ has been launched to strengthen the focus on innovators and entrepreneurs building sustainable models to create efficient supply chains to manage waste generated, bolster the waste to value systems and empower waste picker communities in India. This partnership will focus on innovative solutions which can integrate informal waste pickers and create stable employment opportunities for them while accelerating waste management and processing in Bengaluru,
Vijayanagar and Dolvi among other cities. This year’s Techtonic challenge will follow two tracks – Market Validation Track supported by H&M Foundation and Scale Up Track supported by JSW Foundation. Through the Market Validation track, five winners will be supported with pilot opportunities of Rs 15 lakh per start-up, and access to field partner networks for on-ground implementation in Bengaluru and other cities through H&M Foundation’s Saamuhika Shakti initiative. The winners will also have access to a curated set of offerings to provide support on digitisation and marketing. Through the Scale Up Track,
two winners will be selected to implement their solutions on ground through pilot opportunities of Rs. 40 lakhs, in both Vijayanagar and Dolvi. The winners will be partnering with the JSW Foundation teams to build sustainable business models to effectively manage the waste and generate employment in these two districts. The winning start-ups from both these tracks will also have access to other offerings, including technology and business advisory, market access support and access to seed capital of up to Rs. 1 Crore per start-up under Social Alpha Waste Innovators Accelerator programme.
Yotta appoints Former Mercedes CIO, Pratap Pat Joshi as EVP – IT & Chief Evangelist
their needs. We are delighted to be joined by Pratap in this endeavour. His rich experience and insights will be Yotta Infrastructure has announced the appointment instrumental in taking our community engagement to of Pratap Pat Joshi as the Executive Vice President – greater heights. Pratap will drive YCIC with a refreshed IT and Chief Evangelist. The former CIO of Mercedes vision as it enters the second year of successfully driving Benz (India) will now lead Yotta’s charter to amplify IT thought leadership.” Yotta’s community engagement with the CIO and IT “Digitisation is progressing at an unprecedented leadership fraternity and drive strategic initiatives pace across the enterprise domain and Yotta is at the under Yotta CIO Innovation Council, an invitationforefront of bringing technology innovations closer to only forum represented by senior IT leaders working organisations. Yotta is synonymous with world-class on the agenda of driving Innovation through data center and cloud offerings and has established itself technology. as the trusted partner for organisations in their digital Speaking on the appointment, Sunil Gupta, Cojourney. Its aggressive growth roadmap and vision to founder and CEO of Yotta said, “Yotta’s unwavering democratise digital technology, complemented commitment towards innovation warrants that we by immense market opportunities, makes leverage the collective experience and expertise of the my association with Yotta even more CIO community. With Yotta CIO Innovation Council we compelling. I’m excited to be a part of the continue to invest in fostering greater synergies with dynamic team at Yotta, and I look forward digital transformation thought leaders, understanding to propelling growth through customer the business landscape through their perspective and advocacy, focused engagements and responding with our cutting-edge offerings to serve business IT strategies,” said Pratap.
PRATAP PAT JOSHI
EVP IT & Chief Evangelist, Yotta.
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Turtlemint raises $120 Million in Series E funding led by Amansa and Jungle Ventures Turtlemint, India’s largest insurance advisor focused insurtech platform, has announced a $120 Million Series E fundraise led by Amansa Capital and Jungle Ventures. The round also saw participation from new investors Vitruvian Partners and Marshall Wace, along with other existing investors. This brings the total funding raised by the company since inception to $190 Million. The company intends to use the fresh funds to expand in new geographies, scale its leadership team and strengthen its product stack. Founded in 2015 by Dhirendra Mahyavanshi and Anand Prabhudesai, Turtlemint is a digital platform designed to help financial advisors understand and distribute insurance to their community of customers. The platform helps financial advisors instantly match each customer with a suite of products that is best suited for their unique needs, through a digital solution thereby removing the hassles of paperwork. The Turtlemint advisor community today has 160,000+ insurance advisors using the Turtlemint
DHIRENDRA MAHYAVANSHI Co-founder, Turtlemint.
platform in 15,000+ pin codes in India. Turtlemint’s Advisor App branded as TurtlemintPro, allows empaneled PoSP advisors to fully manage their insurance business using a simple mobile app. Aside from selling a range of products across Health, Life, Personal Accident, Motor Insurance, etc; the App also provides advisors the ability to build stronger customer relationships by enabling sharing of personalised branded content and quotes. It also offers a mobile-based training and skill development program for advisors through the Turtlemint Academy section on the app.
PRAGYA MISRA MEHRISHI Director of Public Affairs, Truecaller India.
‘TrueCyberSafe’ training program launched to raise awareness against Cyber Crime Truecaller, the leading global platform for verifying contacts and blocking unwanted communication, in collaboration with CyberPeace Foundation, a non-partisan civil society organisation, launched the first training of #TrueCyberSafe focused on Internet safety at the Royal Global University in Guwahati, Assam. The joint initiative by the organisations aims to create awareness and train people to tackle cyber frauds leading to a safer online experience. The safety training that begins in Assam will be held in five regions across India to increase awareness about the steps
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that our users can take to avoid fraud, spam and scams. The event was graced by Anurag Goel, IAS, Principal Secretary, IT Department, The Commissioner of Police, Guwahati, Harmeet Singh, the Founder and Global President, CyberPeace Foundation, Major Vineet Kumar and Pragya Misra Mehrishi, Director of Public Affairs, Truecaller and was attended by other important dignitaries, students and faculties of the University. While delivering the Keynote address and launching the Campaign in Assam, Anurag Goel, IAS, Principal Secretary, IT Department, Assam said, “The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the vulnerabilities of cyberspace, which is evidenced by the rise in cyber-attacks in the past few years. This can only be tackled through better awareness and building the capacity of people to recognise and report cybercrimes. Taking cognizance of this issue, the government of Assam has taken several measures in the past, including organising a month-long cyber awareness drive and issuing a one-stop guide book on how to stay safe online. We are very happy to see Truecaller play a role in raising awareness, and we wish them all the best. We are confident that this will prove to be an extremely fruitful exercise.”
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L&T’ 5th edition of TECHgium concludes with breakthrough innovations L&T Technology Services, a global leading pure play engineering services company, announced the successful conclusion of the 5th Edition of its widely acclaimed annual academia-industry innovation initiative, TECHgium. Conceptualised to provide engineering students with
an early exposure to real-life problem statements faced by industries, TECHgium has, over the years, emerged as one of the most sought-after forums for engineering students passionate about pursuing an innovation-driven career in the global engineering and technology services domain. The current edition saw 30,421 students, from 444 reputed engineering institutes across India, vying for the top spot The finalists presented PoCs on several breakthrough innovations, involving cutting edge technology trends such as artificial intelligence, deep learning, renewable energy, drone technology, compute vision and EV batteries among others. Some of the concepts showcased were based on Drone Supervisors, EV Battery Optimisation, Hover-Drones with Dynamic Charging via Wireless Power Transfer, Easy to Attach IoT Crane Box, Self-Cleaning Solar Panels, End-to-End Fully Automatic Deep Learning Algorithm for Scientific Document Denoising, Solar Tracking System for Efficient Power Generation using Image Processing and Automated Payment Mechanism for Contractual Agreements.
New study by Infosys Finacle, Red Hat and Strategic Treasurer finds corporate banking digital reset on the rise Infosys Finacle, part of EdgeVerve Systems, a whollyowned subsidiary of Infosys, and Red Hat, the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, in association with the Strategic Treasurer, a leading consulting firm in the area of treasury and risk management, launched a research report titled ‘Leaping Forward – Scaling Digital Transformation in Corporate Banking’. The report features insights from senior corporate banking executives from over 125 leading global banks and financial services companies. The report found that the transaction lines of business such as cash management, payments, trade, and supply chain finance, have become key for corporate banks. Over a third of the respondents believe that they will drive growth by anywhere between 10-25% in the next three years. The report findings highlight that a full suite of digital self-service treasury offerings will be the primary differentiator for corporate banks by 2026. In addition, the ability to provide tailored solutions for client businesses has also emerged as a top priority, with over 90% of the respondents believing it to be essential or very important. With open banking paradigms and API-led possibilities unlocking real-time information flows, banks will need to consolidate existing capabilities, embrace new business models, and adopt new digital strategies to gain competitive edge.
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Key highlights include: l An overwhelming majority of 72% of respondents believe the corporate banking future will be about building a platform business by tapping new and diverse partner networks within a larger ecosystem l While most incumbent financial institutions are comfortable leading innovations largely in their traditional lines of business such as lending, deposits, trade and supply chain finance, more than half of the respondents have stated that it is the new entrants, particularly fintechs, that will lead innovation into cash management 56%, and payments business 81%. l Corporate banks recognise the importance of modern technologies including mobility and advanced analytics as essential to their organisations; however, over half of them acknowledged that adoption is still lagging l 64% of respondents rated legacy technology and system integration as key challenges with respect to innovation.
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68% of bots have access to sensitive data and assets, says CyberArk
SUMIT SRIVASTAVA
Solutions Engineering Manager India, CyberArk.
CyberArk provides the most comprehensive security offering for any identity – human or machine – across business applications, distributed workforces, hybrid cloud workloads and throughout the
DevOps lifecycle. The world’s leading organisations trust CyberArk to help secure their most critical assets. Sumit Srivastava, Solutions Engineering Manager – India at CyberArk on World Password Day said, “Humans aren’t the only target for attackers that seek to compromise credentials as their easiest pathway to an organisation’s critical data and assets. Humans remain a lucrative and relatively easy target; the average staff member has more than 30 digital identities, and over half have some kind of sensitive access. But software bots – little pieces of code that do repetitive tasks – exist in huge numbers in firms around the world and are also a prime target.” He added, “Bots are a major component of digital business. They need information – and access – so they can do what they do. In fact, 68% of non-humans or bots have access to sensitive
data and assets, according to the CyberArk 2022 Identity Security Threat Landscape report. And, given that the research also showed that machine identities now outweigh human identities by a factor of 45x on average and that their credentials are mostly not being properly protected, this is a cause for concern. Attackers specifically go after bots because they know that in many cases their passwords are not being rotated. They know also that bots are generally over-permissions, have more access than they need, and are not monitored like human identities for any anomalies. A compromised bot allows an attacker to maintain access and stay there undetected. Even today, we still see bots that backup all servers or domain admin accounts. In some cases, these bots are still using default passwords. A compromise here becomes a ‘game over’ issue for the targeted organisation.”
Leading Technologist Anuj Mathur to Head Compass India Development Center in Gurugram IDC Gurugram, headed by leading technologist Anuj Mathur, will be Compass’s sixth development centre worldwide and the third international development centre outside of the United States, following Compass IDC, Hyderabad, and Bengaluru. The new state-ofthe-art innovation and technology center will leverage engineering talent in India to develop cutting-edge solutions using Data, Artificial Intelligence, ML and Cloud. Compass, is a real estate technology aggregator located in the United States. Anuj Mathur, Sr. Director of Engineering, Compass, Inc. said, “Being a new-age real estate technology platform, it’s pivotal for us to continuously evolve and this is where India’s technology talent plays a pivotal role for us. The Gurugram IDC, reinforces our commitment to not only strengthen our technology talent pool but also leverage it to build new-age technology solutions that empower our agents to deliver exceptional service to seller and buyer clients.” During the first quarter 2022, Compass recorded USD
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1.4 Billion in terms of revenue with an increase of 25% year-over-year. Last year, Compass agents did USD 250 Billion worth of home transactions across the US out of which Compass had USD 6.4 Billion worth of commission revenue. Since its inception, Compass has been able to capture 5.8% of the United States’ real estate market share. Compass established its first India Development Center in Hyderabad followed by Bengaluru and now in Gurugram to develop its footprint in India. Compass IDC’s existing technical talent pool has been instrumental in the creation of cutting-edge technology-based products in a variety of sectors, including CRM, Marketing, Client Servicing, 3D Virtual Tours, and more. In fact, Compass’s Real Estate Knowledge Graph, an Artificial Intelligencebased platform capable of detecting correlations between previously unrelated data sets, is fully based in Hyderabad.
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FairPlay Group emerges as Market Leader in India’s multi-faceted online sports platform
FairPlay Group, the world’s largest sports exchange, has emerged as the market leader in providing multi-faceted online gaming experiences and updates. In a country that is fixated with all things sports, particularly cricket, FairPlay Group has successfully become a household name with its multitude of offerings. The first and most widely visited platform – FairPlay Club offers sports enthusiasts from all around
the world the chance to not only enjoy the live streaming of matches but also to make a hefty profit by wagering on the matches alongside. Cricketer Sunil Narine has been the face of the venture. FairPlay Club, with an active user base of a staggering 2,00,000 is best known for offering the most profitable odds, thus ensuring the heftiest profits a user can make across any competing platform. With over 30 premium sports, live
cards and casino games with real dealers, FairPlay Club members are truly spoilt for choice. On the other hand, FairPlay News has backed many teams across various leagues while bringing to enthusiasts the latest sports news, updates and exclusive player bytes. The latest feather in their cap is the recently launched FairPlay Fantasy – a one of a kind fantasy platform where the user can predict the results of an ongoing match. Bollywood celebrities Varun Dhawan and Shraddha Kapoor have endorsed this offering from the FairPlay Group. Fantasy is a sports enthusiast’s paradise where they can explore all the exciting permutations and combinations of individual skills and knowledge. “Designed and curated by industry veterans,” a FairPlay Group spokesperson said, “The aim was to create an all-inclusive platform where a sports enthusiast can find everything they could imagine under one umbrella.”
Ajay Sharma bestowed the Prestigious Business Leader of the year award for 2022 Ajay Sharma, President, and Founder of Abhinav Immigration Services Private, has been awarded the Business Leader of the Year award for 2022 at the 20th Global and 5th Edition India Business Leader of the Year Awards held in the city recently. The award is endorsed by reputed bodies like “World Federation of Marketing Professionals”, “Federation of Human Resources Professionals”, and “CMO Global”. The award was presented to Ajay Sharma at the hands of SK Dutt, Senior Advisor, United Nations Conference of Trade and Development, and Dewang Neralia, Chief Excellence Officer, NTT Data Payment Services India, at a glittering ceremony held at the Taj Lands’ End in Mumbai on May 6. Prominent dignitaries present at the awards ceremony included Radhika Gupta, MD & CEO, Edelweiss Mutual Fund, and Dr Saugata Mitra, MD, National Dairy
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Development Board Dairy Services. A serial entrepreneur Ajay Sharma has been amongst the pioneers of immigration and visa consultancy services in India since 1994. Through Abhinav Immigration Services Pvt Ltd, he has been working in Consultancy and advisory services on citizenship by investment programs, Start-up Visa Programs, and Residency Visa Programs for skilled professionals, business persons, and high net-worth individuals. Ajay Sharma is a globe-trotter, an affluent speaker, and a cross-culture expert. Besides being a global mobility expert, he likes to write on subjects as diverse as human rights and relations, gender equality, and international relations.
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AI in Crypto Platform, CryptoSmartlife set to simplify crypto investing in India Crypto Tech industry has emerged as one of the fastestgrowing technology sub-sectors in the last couple of years. Innovative players are emerging in the space to make crypto investing ubiquitous. And one such hitech startup is CryptoSmartlife. This Singapore and India based startup uses artificial intelligence, Quant and advanced data science to ensure Crypto, the newly created asset class, reaches everyone by breaking the tech barriers. They have successfully launched, and the platform is accessible via the web portal as well as a mobile app on the android play store. CryptoSmartlife is on a mission to turn Crypto investing as easy, convenient, and quick as cooking noodles. It is an Artificial Intelligence-powered Crypto Thematic Basket Investment platform where top 100 market capitalisation coins are put into baskets based on past returns, price volatility, coin correlations, and other fundamental factors. This is the first Cryptocurrency investment app of its kind in India which lets users make both one-time and recurring periodic recurring investments in Crypto coin baskets based on popular themes such as Blockchain, Metaverse, NFT, Green Crypto, Web3, etc. In times such as current market volatility, coin
fundamentals, technical indicators, and investment principles become even more important and CryptoSmartlife provides easy access to data metrics such as returns, volatility, sharpe ratio, bullish/ bearish signals, so investors can make informed decisions. Amongst all the Crypto investment apps, what makes CryptoSmartlife distinctive are its innovative customer-centric features including Coin basket investment based on risk appetite in less than 2 mins; Auto Rebalancing of coin portfolios based on changing market conditions; Crypto Recurring Basket Investment Plan in one click; Hassle-free withdrawals and deposits; and Instant KYC and 24*7 customer-centric support. With the value of Cryptocurrencies growing rapidly, the security, and safety of digital assets play a key role. CryptoSmartlife wins here, as they use world’s top crypto custody providers to ensure the safety of digital assets.
HCL launches Kubernetes Migration Platform to accelerate application modernisation
HCL Technologies has launched its Kubernetes Migration Platform to help organisations accelerate application modernisation. HCL KMP is an automated solution that helps organisations migrate workloads from legacy onpremises and Cloud Foundry environments to modern Kubernetes-based platforms. KMP’s repeatable, reliable, and
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cost-effective approach enables organisations to reduce risk and complete migrations up to 120 times faster compared to manual alternatives. In addition, HCL KMP enables organisations to effortlessly move workloads between hybrid, multi-cloud environments built on different Kubernetes-based platforms, including; Google GKE,
Microsoft Azure AKS, Amazon EKS, VMWare TKGI, Rancher, and Red Hat OpenShift. The platform offers organisations more freedom of choice, ensuring they are run on the most cost-effective platforms and helping to avoid vendor lock-in. “Enterprises have grown increasingly concerned with the operational costs of maintaining legacy Cloud Foundry environments in a cloud-native world,” said Kalyan Kumar, CTO and Head of Ecosystems, HCL Technologies. “Limited modernisation capabilities in Cloud Foundry have made it difficult to migrate to Kubernetes without an excessive investment of time and resources. KMP creates a bridge to the future, by offering our clients a fast, fully automated, and hasslefree journey to any Kubernetesbased platform.”
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(Left to Right) Dr Praveer Sinha, CEO & MD, Tata Power and Unsoo Kim, MD & CEO, Hyundai Motor India Limited.
Tata Power partners with Hyundai India to power-up EV-charging infrastructure Tata Power has entered a strategic partnership with Hyundai Motor India, the country’s first smart mobility solutions provider and the largest exporter since its inception, to build a robust EV charging network and accelerate the adoption of EVs across India. Through this association, Hyundai Motor India would become a key contributor to expansion of quality charging infrastructure. The MoU was signed between Tata Power and Hyundai Motor India in the presence of Dr Praveer Sinha, CEO & MD, Tata Power and Unsoo Kim, MD & CEO, Hyundai Motor India Limited at HMIL’s Headquarters in Gurugram, Haryana. Under the partnership, Tata Power will install Tata Power EZ Charge fast chargers -DC 60 kW at HMIL’s existing 34 EV dealer locations across 29 cities along with supply, installation, and commissioning of home charging for HMIL’s EV customers. The association will make Tata Power and HMIL key contributors to the expansion of charging infrastructure. Currently, all 34 HMIL dealer locations are equipped with AC 7.2 kW chargers, and the company aims to expand the fast charging infra network across its pan India dealerships. This new partnership will be of tremendous benefit to customers as the vehicle charging time of a DC 60 kW charger is much lesser than AC 7.2 kW charger. DC 60 kW charging stations will enhance customer convenience. Commenting on the strategic partnership, Dr Praveer Sinha, CEO & MD, Tata Power said “Our collaboration with Hyundai Motor India aligns with the Government of India’s National Electric Mobility
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Mission Plan and demonstrates our commitment to leading India’s clean energy and net-zero goals. Tata Power’s expertise in EV charging space coupled with comprehensive charging solutions and countrywide ownership of Hyundai vehicles, will help in the development of sustainable mobility infrastructure, boosting faster EV adoption.” Commenting on the announcement, Unsoo Kim, MD & CEO, Hyundai Motor India Limited, said, “Realising Hyundai’s global vision of ‘Progress for Humanity’ and in line with our new brand direction of going ‘Beyond Mobility, Hyundai Motor India is glad to announce its partnership with Tata Power to facilitate and strengthen India’s robust EV ecosystem and enhance the general outlook on sustainable transportation, reaffirming Hyundai’s vision to integrate social responsibility with economic prosperity and community wellness. Such strategic partnerships are fundamental in accelerating the adoption of Electric Vehicles by customers to achieve the national goal of carbon neutrality. This partnership will power up the nation’s electric mobility mission by offering end-to-end EV charging infrastructure at HMIL dealerships along with supply, installation, and commissioning of home charging for HMIL EV customers, thereby, enhancing customer convenience and ease of adoption of Electric vehicles.” Under the collaboration, the charging stations at HMIL dealerships will be open for all-electric vehicle customers. Additionally, end-to-end charging solutions at the home of HMIL’s EV owners will be offered by Tata Power for their convenience resulting in hassle-free EV ownership.
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DhiWise raises USD 2.5M in seed round to fast track application development by 10x DhiWise, the next-gen visual programming platform announced a $2.5 Million seed round by India Quotient and Dholakia Ventures. Currently in beta, DhiWise automates the development of enterprise-grade applications in lowcode or pro-code environments for Android (Kotlin), iOS (Swift), Flutter, Node.js and React apps. DhiWise auto-generates fully functional, human-readable and editable source code that is clean, error-free and helps fast track the application development process.
“DhiWise is building a solution that is desperately needed for developers to be more effective and help accelerate the pace of technological advancement. DhiWise is a niche, high impact, and next-gen solution. It is awe-inspiring to see global thinking and world-class innovation coming from a Tier III town. It is a validation of IQ’s fundamental belief that innovation can come from anywhere and we are excited to support such initiatives,“ said Gagan Goyal, General Partner at India Quotient. “DhiWise’s approach reduces the product development time by 70% without impacting the developer experience, customizability, and code ownership. This unique proposition places the company in a position to scale within the developer community and enterprises of all sizes. The ease of the product & the potential for global surgence is something that we look forward to with our investment in DhiWise” said Dravya Dholakia, CEO at Dholakia Ventures. “We are humbled and inspired by the trust our marquee investors have shown in us. We understand the pain of the developers through first-hand experience. We want to empower them to do their best work with the least effort and change the world faster, “said Vishal Virani, Co-Founder and CEO of DhiWise. The funds so raised will be used in scaling up product and go-to-market functions.
Meta launches 3D Avatars in India If you love social media then here’s your chance to go 3D with your profile pictures. Meta has launched updated 3D Avatars to Facebook and Messenger in India. The new Avatars are more expressive, more customisable and more diverse. To better reflect the billions of unique people on this planet, Meta is adding new facial shapes and assistive devices for people with disabilities. Meta is rolling out updated 3D Avatars to Facebook and Messenger, and for the first time Instagram Stories and DMs. From May 24, 2022, social media followers of Meta in India could begin to show up as their virtual self across apps via stickers, feed posts, Facebook profile pictures, and more. This also marks the first time Avatars will be available on Instagram.
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Manish Chopra, Director and Head Partnerships, India at Meta said, “Representations in the metaverse should reflect the diversity of the real world. Avatars are just the first step toward enabling everyone to express themselves in their unique ways. When you create your avatar you can choose the right facial features, body types, clothing styles, and more to create your virtual self. We offered more than one quintillion different combinations when we launched our updated avatars last year, and we are continuing to add more options to give people even more ways to express themselves.” This update adds Cochlear implants and over-theear hearing aids (for one or both ears) in a variety of colors, and on all platforms including VR. It also includes wheelchairs, which will appear in stickers on Facebook, in Messenger chats and in DMs on Instagram. Meta will continue to add more options over time based on feedback from the community.
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Giift acquires majority ownership in Loyolink Giift, a leading provider of loyalty management solutions around the globe announced it has acquired a majority ownership in Loyolink Marketing, a leading entity in loyalty, lifestyle privileges, and incentive provision space. Giift and Loyolink’s combined efforts will expand their service offerings across Giift’s client base and Giift affiliate network, in the GCC but also other geographies and jointly increase loyalty engagement added value. “Adding Loyolink to the Giift ecosystem will strategically enrich our offer and allow us to leverage our existing Giift products and services, opening up new possibilities for our customers that are unique in the market,” said Laurent Xatart, Co-Founder
of Giift. “Loyolink will enable Giift clients to engage more effectively and more personally with their customers. Enhancing the Giift customer experience portfolio with Loyolink will create a new paradigm for how commerce is managed digitally as it will deliver a higher personalisation, helping organisations ensure every engagement is relevant and impactful,” said Pascal Xatart, Co-Founder of Giift. “I am personally very excited to see that Loyolink’s pool of knowledge, best industry practices, and merchant partner nuances can now be shared across Giift’s global presence in countries like Americas, APEC, MENA, and Europe,” said Naresh Handa, Co-Founder and CEO Loyolink Marketing.
Klaytn to energy the Chongqing Chain
China, with a GDP of US$17.7 Trillion in 2021, is one of the largest economies in the world. Through a series of investments into blockchain, China is building the Blockchain-based Service Network, for which Klaytn Foundation will be a partner to build the open-permissioned Chongqing Chain. Klaytn Foundation, an open-source blockchain ecosystem backed by internet giant Kakao Corp, will be contributing their technical expertise and business insights to provide the blockchain infrastructure and initial nodes for the Chongqing Chain, as well as to help develop the early use cases through a partnership with the Cloud Chain Technology. The BSN is a multi-chain public infrastructure network that aims to be the standard for all blockchain deployments. As of April 2022, BSN supports 28 blockchain frameworks, 19 portals, and over 25,000 developers and 3,000 applications across over 140 virtual data centers around the world.
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“We see great synergies in developing the Chongqing Chain in parallel with the Klaytn mainnet, as it would make it possible for Klaytn developers to plug in to the China blockchain network, providing an entry into the massive China market, and vice versa for Chinese developers looking to go global. Being in China will also help us to develop diverse use cases to bring about the mass adoption of blockchain, strengthen the Klaytn ecosystem and help us in building robust infrastructures to support the development of metaverses,” said David Shin, Head of Global Adoption at Klaytn Foundation. “Following Klaytn’s integration to the BSN International earlier this year, we are excited to further strengthen the partnership by introducing the permissioned version of Klaytn, Chongqing Chain, to the Chinese market to support use cases related to NFT, metaverse, gaming and beyond”, said Yifan He, CEO of Red Date Technology and Executive Director of the BSN Development Association.
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MoIAT connects Singaporean counterparts in Sci-Tech virtual tour The UAE’s Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology in collaboration with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation hosted a virtual tour of the UAE’s science and technology ecosystem for Singapore’s business, research and science community. The latest virtual tour, hosted in cooperation with the UAE Embassy in Singapore, showcased the UAE’s Fourth Industrial Revolution strategy and the opportunities that exist for collaboration in advanced manufacturing. The UAE Sci-Tech Virtual Tours, which was launched in 2021, is one of MoIAT’s initiatives designed to help position the UAE as a global hub for science and technology and an enabling environment for the industries of the future. In addition to offering information on the UAE’s science and technology capabilities, the virtual tours facilitate businessto-business introductions between stakeholders and investors and provide a platform for publicand private-sector stakeholders to exchange ideas and expertise. More than 50 delegates participated in the virtual tour, which concluded with a high-level pitch session that directly connected Singaporean startups to UAE experts and investors, including senior executives from Emirati defense technology group EDGE,
the technology transition arm of the Advanced Technology Research Council Aspire, MoIAT, and the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence. The pitch session connected Singaporean startups to potential investors from the UAE, as well as provided guidance on the relevant technologies needed to ensure maximum profitability and increased productivity and efficiency. From his side, H.E. Jamal Abdulla AlSuwaidi, the UAE’s Ambassador in the Republic of Singapore, noted: ” The UAE is Singapore’s largest trading partner in the region, and bilateral trade reached a record level in 2021 of over 21 billion Singaporean dollars. The two countries have several economic opportunities in the digital economy, green economy, smart cities, fintech, and agritech sectors, among others.”
Amber Group announces Q3 2022 launch of Openverse, The Gateway into the Metaverse Amber Group, the leading global digital asset platform, announced its entry into the metaverse with the launch of Openverse, a Web3 enablement platform for creators, brands and businesses. A culmination of Amber Group’s multi-disciplinary expertise in digital architecture and blockchain-native infrastructure, Openverse serves as a gateway to the metaverse, empowering Web2 creators, brands and businesses with tools and services to transition into Web3. With the metaverse economy projected to reach $13 Trillion by 2030, Openverse marks Amber Group’s venture into Web3 community building. Due to launch in Q3 2022, Openverse is a significant milestone in Amber Group’s plans to aid businesses, industries and societies as they transition into Web3. As a one-stop platform, Openverse will create entry points into the metaverse by delivering end-to-end creative and digital infrastructures for creators, brands and businesses. “Digital assets are the first step in realising a decentralised future where people are empowered
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to create and connect with online communities, unlocking new digital experiences. While there has been a lot of interest in the metaverse, it remains largely conceptual. With Openverse, we are taking a solid step towards creating this digital reality for all. Backed by our expertise and partnerships within the digital asset ecosystem, Openverse is at the forefront of onboarding businesses and communities into the metaverse, unlocking the true potential of decentralisation,” said Amber Group’s Chief Executive Officer, Michael Wu.
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MetabaseNFT launches new set of market analysis tools As NFT trading gains popularity at a massive pace all around the globe, it might be easy to forget that in order to maximise potential in this field, one should have a wide understanding of it. That doesn’t mean that only professionals can trade NFTs. On the contrary. However, traders should have more and better tools for analysing this unique market. For this reason, MetabaseNFT has recently launched new charts and graphs for users’ benefit on their accounts in the brand’s platform. “Our customers deserve the most optimal conditions for exploring the fascinating world of NFTs. Since this is one of our top values as a company, we came to the conclusion that allowing more helpful tools and charts is an absolute necessity,” said Adam Lawson, Spokesperson for MetabaseNFT. “For example, we added charts displaying weekly sales, leading NFT artists, and daily amount of transactions. These and
other helpful tools have the potential to grant our valued customers a distinct advantage over those who trade NFTs using other online marketplaces.”
MORE ASSETS, MORE VARIABLES
Thanks to the broadening of the NFT world and the sharp rise in the number of offered assets, this type of trading naturally holds more and more opportunities waiting to be seized. However, one must not forget that more assets, artists, and trades necessarily mean more variables that need to be taken into consideration.
Metavize and Metabloqs form strategic partnership for 3D spatial development Metavize Technology Solutions Limited and Metabloqs announced a strategic partnership to provide 3D spatial development and architectural services to companies who are interested in investing properties and developing projects in “meta-cities” in Metabloqs. Metavize is a highly innovative full-service 3D spatial development and architectural service firm for the metaverse, while Metabloqs is a decentralised metaverse with meta-cities based on “real” cities that provide a real world, truly immersive experience. Metabloqs’ vision is to create a unique ecosystem where users can create, own, and monetise their experiences using token “BLOQS,” the native utility token. Citizens of Metabloqs are provided with a unique passport to enter the metaverse, purchase land and rare goods such as NFTs, and create their dream projects. The first meta-city is Meta-Paris, which is scheduled to launch in June 2022. Through this strategic partnership, Metavize will act as the official representative of Metabloqs to expand into other meta-cities in Asia through strategic investment. “Metablogs offer high-quality 3D graphics and truly immersive experience. There will be DIY userfriendly tools on Metabloqs for users who want to build their own projects,” said Megha Shrestha, CEO of Metabloqs. “We are very pleased with our strategic
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partnership with Metavize. This allows us to create a stunning experience that will catch users’ eyes, offer professional 3D spatial development and architectural services to our property investors and business operators, expediting their property development cycle and improving return-on-investment.” “As people spend more time in the digital space for leisure, commerce, and work, their expectations of user experience in the metaverse will be much higher and one that is closer to real-life experience,” commented Michael Leung, CEO of Metavize. “We are very excited about our partnership with Metabloqs, who by far offer the best immersive experience among other metaverses that we have seen on the market. We believe this superb user experience will become a very important driver for user adoption.”
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TECHNOLOGY TRANSFORMATION
GREGG OSTROWSKI Executive CTO, Cisco AppDynamics.
FULL-STACK OBSERVABILITY
WHY IT PERFORMANCE IS IMPACTING DX Observability of the IT stack is imperative to improve digital experience.
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TECHNOLOGY TRANSFORMATION
A
s regional businesses navigate a sea of economic and commercial challenges on the road to postCOVID recovery, technologists know they cannot afford any slip-ups when it comes to delivering exceptional digital experiences, both for customers and employees. Being able to monitor and optimise IT performance at all times has always been important, now it is mission-critical to the business. “The pandemic forced a rapid acceleration of digital transformation programs and cloud computing initiatives. This left many technologists struggling to get unified visibility across their IT infrastructure and unable to prioritise actions and investment based on what really matters most to end users,” explains Gregg Ostrowski, Executive CTO, Cisco AppDynamics. “As a result, IT Ops teams are constantly firefighting, having to rely on multiple, siloed monitoring tools to manage an increasingly sprawling and complex IT estate.” According to Ostrowski, this siloed model prevents technologists from properly identifying the root cause of any problem. In order to overcome this visibility issue, they are urgently looking to build on their current application monitoring tools and techniques to get a unified view on availability and performance up and down the IT stack for compute, storage, network and public internet, from the customer-facing application all the way into the back end.
WHAT IS FULL-STACK OBSERVABILITY l
l
Gartner calls the full-stack observability space as application performance monitoring. Full-stack observability is being able to align all of the technologies in the IT estate of an enterprise. Full-stack observability is facilitated by interoperable tools from Cisco AppDynamics.
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“This is why full-stack observability has now become a major priority for businesses all over the world,” comments Ostrowski. “Full-stack observability enables IT operations, development, and networking teams to break down the silos and quickly and easily identify anomalies, understand root causes through dependency analysis and resolve issues before they impact customers and employees.” And when IT teams achieve this level of visibility, they can start to be more strategic in the decisions they make and the value they can add to their organisation. In a Cisco AppDynamics report, Agents of Transformation 2021, 99% of UAE technologists reported that it was important to be able to directly link technical performance to business outcomes. “Full-stack observability allows IT teams to work from a single source of truth for all availability and performance data. And when performance data is connected to real world business metrics, technologists can assess issues based on their potential impact to the bottom line and prioritise their actions accordingly,” Ostrowski comments.
JOURNEY TO FULL-STACK OBSERVABILITY
A recent report from Cisco AppDynamics,The Journey to Observability, reveals that 94% of UAE technologists are excited about the potential of full-stack observability and the business benefits it can bring, and 92% believe it could be transformational for their enterprise. Moreover, the study shows that 98% of UAE enterprises have already started their transition to full-stack observability.
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The way things have worked historically, each of the teams has been responsible for managing a technology silo.
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Whenever there is an IT failure, the teams create a war room scenario, and may say more often than not - their domain is not the culprit.
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Full-stack observability is bringing all the teams together.
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DRIVERS FOR FULL-STACK OBSERVABILITY
CHALLENGES AROUND FULL-STACK OBSERVABILITY l
Inside the IT estate, the number of observability tool sets required to manage performance can range from 50 to 150.
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A single legacy application that was built ten years ago, may be split up into a 100 different microservices, spread across a cloud platform.
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Things get more complicated when multiple legacy applications have been sprawled and they are sharing services and entity dependencies.
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Looking at observability tool sets, the big challenge is that they have way too many.
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Another problem is observability tool setsare not able to work together, and you have an issue with interconnectivity.
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Technology leaders do not want to buy point solutions any longer and want to buy observability tools that are integrated together.
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Kubernetes in the cloud complicates things still further scaling from 5,000 containers to 150,000 containers in a short period of time.
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Observability tool sets that do not interoperate are putting pressure on the IT staff to build their own integrations.
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Another challenge is skill sets required to successfully leverage full-stack observability.
Demand for full-stack observability is being driven by cloud native application start-ups and migration of legacy enterprise applications to cloud.
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When enterprises start migrating to the cloud, it changes their world and changes their perspective of things.
Along with application sprawl is associated data sprawl and enterprises need towhere their data is.
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Once in the cloud, businesses need to transform their mindset.
l
A classic test is the transformation of business context linked to its presence in the cloud.
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Managing cloud microservices and cloud hosting infrastructure requires different skill sets.
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The pandemic created a massive shift to digital transformation.It drove adoption of cloud services and adoption ofspeech transformation. It also created a sprawl of technology and a hybrid environment running across different platforms.The next step for enterprises is to progress stagewise into observability of this complexity. You cannot drive business outcomes and business decisions without a clear understanding of the full stack ofapplications that are now sprawled out.
But as Gregg Ostrowki warns, this transition is a complex, multi-stage journey that takes time and requires a holistic strategy that encompasses technical, cultural and structural change. “The choice of technology and implementation partners become critical here,” explains Ostrowski. “Technology partners have a vital role to play in easing the pressure on technologists during this most challenging period and providing them with the support and information they need to build a business case and execute against a strategic implementation programme.” Although the vast majority of organisations are still at the very earliest stages of their transition, those that did start it, are already reporting a very positive impact, both within the IT department and across the wider organisation, as seen in the AppDynamics report. “94% of IT teams in the UAE that have started implementing observability technology say they have achieved some progress in getting visibility across their whole IT stack over the last 12 months. Technologists are seeing return on investment straight away. This will be hugely important as they look to build momentum and deploy solutions across their IT environment.” says Ostrowski. Amongst these benefits, technologists specifically said that they were achieving: l Reduced IT operational costs due to the possibility to quickly isolate and tackle performance issues anywhere in the IT stack, 55% l Better ability to prioritise IT innovation or activity based on where the biggest business
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BENEFITS OF FULL-STACK OBSERVABILITY l
Full stack observability helps to isolate issues and ensure that business objectives are not impacted in a negative way.
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Full-stack observability has been built on the principles of visibility, insights and action.
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Even though IT teams may be using a specific observability tool that is very good at its domain, the big challenge is being able to bring together the business context.
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Amongst all the competitive products in the Gartner’s quadrant, the big differentiator is broader business context.
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Full-stack observability solutions from Cisco AppDynamics are built at the core to work together, and also work independently.
impacts will be, 52% Improved IT productivity and less time spent firefighting, 47% As Ostrowski reflected, over the past year, talk has finally turned to action and organisations across all sectors have made remarkable progress in building out their monitoring capabilities. They now find themselves with a unique opportunity to have a game-changing impact on their organisations. And, critically, they know exactly what they have to do to make it happen. “When you get to speak to customers, you see that this is only the start! Technologists, and business leaders, have had a taste of what full-stack observability can deliver, both now and in the future, and they are hungry to build on this momentum in 2022 and beyond,” says Ostrowski. l
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COVER STORY
SMART CITIES IN INDIA
Cities are considered smart when they integrate information and communication to improve operational efficiency and share information with stakeholders.
INTEGRATING DATA AND PROCESSES THROUGH COMMAND-AND-CONTROL CENTRES
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A
AVEVA’s pledge to net-zero by
2030 aligns with these aspirations and the highest levels of commitment to the Paris goals
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s India’s smart cities expand in size and population, and mass migration towards cities surges, utilities from electricity to clean water must find new and efficient ways to cater to greater demands. Similarly, pressure on infrastructure has resulted in unexpected and unplanned urbanisation. Prior to implementing smart city projects, urban resources were not as managed as efficiently as they could have been, leading to wastage and an urgent need for those in charge to figure out an optimum in resource utilisation. Authorities running these cities are still challenged every day to ensure they are providing, maintaining, and enhancing the quality of life and wellbeing for their citizens, while balancing the allocation of scarce resources. Living standards must be monitored and assessed constantly: are they reliable, green, efficient, and resilient? Resilience is especially important, as cities have to consistently prepare for the next unknown. As the world’s population grows and the focus on sustainability increases, many civic authorities are looking to smart city operations to drive efficiency and improve liveability for their citizens. In technology terms, cities are considered smart when they integrate their information and communication technology to improve operational efficiency and share information with different stakeholders, including the citizens they serve. Innovative software gathers, visualises and analyses data into unified dashboards to identify trends and provide action-oriented horizontal and vertical integration of existing systems. This enables civic authorities to make changes that improve asset and resource
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management, efficiency of service delivery, and communications with citizens. This is no easy task and thus smart city technology is constantly evolving, pushing the boundaries of what citizens can expect and what civic operations can achieve.
THE AVEVA INITIATIVE
India’s Smart City Mission, initiated by the Government of India in 2015 to transform the country’s urban landscape and drive sustainable and economic growth, aligns with AVEVA’s vision and efforts in driving smart city innovation. AVEVA’s smart city solutions includes facilities management, utilities, transportation, and data centres. “We consider it an honour to be a technology partner for India’s Smart City Mission, with seven cities choosing AVEVA’s solutions as their digital backbones,” says Peter Herweck, CEO, AVEVA The seven urban regions where AVEVA has partnered includes Nava Raipur, the country’s first metropolitan greenfield smart city; Namchi; Kohima, and more recently, Gangtok; Pune-Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation; Rajkot, and Navi Mumbai. Nava Raipur is the beacon of how smart cities can realise sustainable goals for every stakeholder. Nava Raipur marks AVEVA’s first partnership with the government of India and since its launch it has been designated as a lighthouse for the initiative. Based in the central state of Chhattisgarh, the city was designed and built from the ground up to create quality of life by improving sustainability, safety, efficiency, and liveability for its residents. Nava Raipur’s Integrated Command and Control Centre, is built on AVEVA’s Unified Operations Centre software, integrates smart governance
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(Left to right) Peter Herweck, CEO, AVEVA; Emon Zaman, Senior Vice President, Asia Pacific, AVEVA; Gary Wong, Industry Principal, Global Infrastructure and Water, AVEVA; Rashesh Mody, SVP Monitoring and Control, AVEVA.
systems, intelligent transportation, utility management, city surveillance and streetlighting, intelligent building management systems, smart network and data centre, all through a single interface. As such, it delivers value to citizens and municipal authorities alike by providing agile, resilient, and sustainable civic services through an efficiently digitalised approach. Citizens can even access some services via applications making the system both more carbon-efficient and more responsive than other approaches. During the pandemic, for example, this real-time insight into all of the city’s critical infrastructure systems enabled Nava Raipur officials to match supply and demand with greater accuracy, and respond to emergencies as they arose, cutting response times by an average of 60%, while making it easier for municipal authorities to communicate with the general population and respond to the needs of affected citizens. “Over the course of the pandemic, AVEVA systems kept India’s civic services running,” says Emon Zaman, Senior Vice
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President, Asia Pacific, AVEVA. AVEVA’s integrated software capabilities have fostered sustainable and resilient development for the Smart City of Namchi, in the state of South Sikkim. Here, existing civic infrastructure was augmented and retrofitted with an Integrated Cross-city Command Centre to conserve energy, driving 20% higher energy efficiency in line with the government of India’s net-zero goals, simultaneously setting a new standard in smart city innovation. Kohima, the capital city of India’s north-eastern state of Nagaland, also implemented an Integrated Command and Control Centre platform created by AVEVA. The Unified Operations Centre-based smart city template ensured that solutions for Kohima were designed and deployed ahead of time, consequently avoiding extended implementation and manual interventions. Much like Namchi, Kohima achieved energy savings of approximately 20% because of the Integrated Command and Control Centre technology
We are working towards supporting this goal for the country through new opportunities arising from the Smart City Mission and other partnerships in India
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platform, and automated smart streetlights, buildings, and other civic sites.
THE AVEVA SOLUTION
The importance and need for a smarter, reliable, resilient infrastructure is being recognised around the world
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With a customised, single-window view of the unique processes that require monitoring in each city, AVEVA’s Unified Operations Centre helps mitigate the pressure of mass urbanisation for administrative management. For example, the impact of one change on the system as a whole can be viewed and even predicted at a glance. When multiple subsystems in a city are integrated, monitored, and controlled from a central location, administrators can manage these demands more easily. During the pandemic, AVEVA systems helped keep civic services running across security, traffic systems, to civic communications, with end-to-end visibility that helped in mitigating costly system downtime, optimising energy resources, and reducing maintenance call outs. AVEVA’s Unified Operations Centre smart city template serves as the digital backbone of these cities’ civic services, helping the authorities realise sustainable improvements in energy efficiency and quality of life, with controlled traffic, smart street lighting, city pollution monitoring and control, smart surveillance, and a WiFi-enabled community notification service. AVEVA’s Unified Operations Centre for Smart Cities is the predominant solution implemented in smart city design, maintenance and control, having been deployed in cities such as Nava Raipur, Namchi and Kohima. It has enabled streamlined communications and improved collaboration, boosting productivity of multi-stakeholder decision-making as it offered closed-loop, enterprise-wide visibility that optimised operations. It enabled the whole team with a centralised view to help make more informed decisions. AVEVA Unified Operations Centre is the foundation for real-time operational performance
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management, with additional solutions including AVEVA’s Enterprise Asset Management. Smart cities such as Nava Raipur are reaping the benefits of a system of systems approach to solve complex challenges they face. To thrive in the challenging times we live in, city operators require a seamless integration of their systems, sites, assets, and people with those of partner stakeholders from different entities. “A unified operations centre can serve as a centralised, single-window view to help all parties involved make informed decisions,” says Gary Wong, Industry Principal, Global Infrastructure and Water, AVEVA. Today’s connected workers are being valued for the visionary insights they bring to their roles, and how they use industrial digital assistants to unlock ever greater value. “The command-andcontrol centre and digital twins are just lenses that develop the understanding of a smart city. As technologies, they only begin to truly deliver value when combined with human insight and capability, in the hands of the connected worker,” says Rashesh Mody, SVP Monitoring and Control, AVEVA. “Digital transformation initiatives of the past year have underscored the critical role of technology in facilitating the smart city of the future, connecting information and process silos with a common digital thread that extends across the urban value chain and creates innumerable opportunities to unlock new value for tomorrow’s citizens,” continues Mody. As we transition towards a new normal in a post-pandemic world, digital capabilities will increasingly act as a barometer for economic resilience.
A SUSTAINABLE APPROACH
“AVEVA’s opportunity for impact is to ensure our software solutions drives sustainable outcomes for
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We support India’s target of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by
2070
form. AVEVA’s pledge to netzero by 2030 aligns with these aspirations and the highest levels of commitment to the Paris goals. Together with our customers, we are working towards supporting this goal for the country through new opportunities arising from the Smart City Mission and other partnerships in India,” adds Herweck. On a more global scale, AVEVA has implemented the AVEVA System Platform in Bremen, North Germany to reduce energy consumption, and in the city of Barcelona, to effectively manage the city’s resources. As well as in El Prat Airport in Barcelona.
FINANCING SMART CITIES
our customers, helping them digitalise and transform the energy efficiency, circularity, traceability, and resilience of their organisations – we call this our technology handprint,” says Herweck. As part of AVEVA’s investment and dedication to sustainability, it has joined 2030Vision, an initiative hosted by the World Economic Forum, that seeks to fast-track advanced technologies to accelerate the achievement of the sustainable goals in an inclusive manner. AVEVA is committed to making meaningful contributions to all 17 of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. In line with this, India records a nationwide, steady progress towards achieving the United Nations’ SDGs, particularly in areas of health, energy, and infrastructure. “We support India’s target of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2070, and the Smart City Mission aims to drive growth in its most sustainable
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In a report by professional services firm Deloitte entitled The Challenge of Paying for Smart City Projects, the authors assert that a new financial framework for smart cities is necessary to accelerate smart city rollout. In this report, Deloitte say - as cities look to upgrade their infrastructure with smart technologies, paying for those projects presents a significant challenge of introducing smart technologies on a wide-scale basis. Constrained by tight budgets, cities need to identify business models that can help to attract private financing to make the introduction viable and financeable.” A new model that is emerging is a private-public partnership model known as performancebased contracting. Under this model, a commercial vendor installs and implements a smart city solution at their own expense, then shares in the savings the city experiences because of the project. One such solution is a smart building energy management solution that allows facility and campus managers to lower their
carbon footprint and reduce energy consumption costs, while avoiding the upfront risk and cost usually associated with a capital upgrade project. Cities stand to reap big rewards from more sustainable management of their real estate and workspaces. Barghest Building Performance, BPP, a Singaporebased energy management specialist, leverages AVEVA technology and this performance-based contracting approach implements an energy management solution to deliver a continuously monitored optimisation service to its facility management customers. BPP assumes the cost risk for the project on behalf of the customer, and then shares in the financial rewards when energy savings are realised. This approach is enabled by technology available today from AVEVA, but 10 years ago, the cost to install sensors, pull data, compute on site, and then remotely monitor that was far too high to deliver an energy management solution with a business model. Barghest Building Performance, delivers a lowrisk high-return solution for smart buildings, leverages AVEVA’s solutions on-premises and in the cloud to optimise the energy efficiency and performance of large shopping centres across Asia. With AVEVA, Barghest Building Performance has reduced energy consumption by up to 35% and cut carbon footprints by up to 20%, consequently enabling BBP’s customers to reduce their operational costs and environmental impact. By taking advantage of performance-based contracting and flexible software licensing models there are smarter ways than ever for cities to embark on a digital transformation journey.
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SMART CITIES MUST BE ABLE TO CONNECT, COLLECT, ANALYSE A smart city collects information through sensors, devices, systems, communicates using networks, analyses data to understand what is happening now, next, and finally it must act.
Challenges within infrastructure are numerous. While the problems faced within transportation, smart cities, data centres, and facility and fleet management differ in many aspects, each one faces increasing challenges of cost, centralised information management, and improved customer experience. Additionally, each one must maintain a holistic view of operations despite the many legacies, disparate applications and systems in use. Infrastructure provides a critical connection to businesses, communities, people, and quality of life on a global scale. It drives economies across the world. In order to stay competitive, every nation must move people, goods and data efficiently while delivering energy and water resources in a safe, reliable and sustainable manner.
ments in technology, there is now a greater need than ever. To accomplish this, enterprises must extend their sights beyond traditional KPIs and monitoring real-time operations. They must leverage the latest technological advancements in data, analytics, advanced visualisation and workflow management capabilities to ensure sustainable innovation through digitalisation. Getting in the way of this vision are several common infrastructure challenges.
APPLICATION SILOS
Enterprises often have multiple applications, but to remain competitive they need a holistic view of all endto-end operations at any given point in time
INFORMATION EXCHANGE
With increasing urbanisation, mounting cost pressures, and demand for improved quality of life, there is now a global move towards infrastructure consolidation, upgrade, and continuous improvement.
With multiple applications and systems, it can be difficult to have full visibility, which makes critical decision-making even more complicated
This, coupled with large greenfield capital projects funded by private and public entities, complex energy management, rising operating costs, and advance-
Siloed applications means that the information technology layer does not interact with operational technology
SILOED IT, OT
The most effective approach, is to not just connect, but to collect, analyse and act with the help of real-time data
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With smart cities, the objective is to enable city leaders to better serve citizens and businesses
systems used to monitor events, processes and devices. This makes it challenging to make effective adjustments in enterprise and industrial operations
AVAILABILITY, UTILISATION OF ASSETS Enterprises often have poor visibility into availability of assets and therefore how to utilise them optimally Due to rapid urbanisation, many cities have old and aging infrastructure with high replacement costs. Converting existing infrastructure to smart infrastructure is the key to improving cities, and it is directly correlated to quality-of-life improvements. Some of the drivers for smart cities include: l l l l l l l l
Cities have many IT,OT systems supplied by various vendors. The ability to connect and exchange information is critical to making more informed decisions Increased use of public transit The need for increased visibility of building plans, for example to help fire fighters mitigate losses Smart buildings reduce energy consumption Better traffic management to reduce congestion and improve emergency response Land usage decisions need to be made, for example to help locate schools and community facilities Water and waste water management must be constantly innovated and maintained for public health High citizen experience to help adhere to most liveable city index
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For smart cities to be efficient, they must be able to connect, collect, analyse and act from disparate data sources. There are three main parts to that job: collecting, communicating and crunching. First, a smart city connects and collects information about itself through sensors, other devices and existing systems. Next, it communicates that data using wired or wireless networks. Third, it crunches, analyses that data to understand what is happening now, what is likely to happen next, and finally it must act based on this intelligence. A transformative approach here spans across various applications, including facilities management, utilities, telecommunication, transportation, health and e-Governance. The most effective approach, then, is to not just connect all these disparate functions, but to collect, analyse and then act with a unified and holistic intelligence with the help of real-time data. With smart cities, the objective is to enable city leaders to better serve citizens and businesses. A command-and-control centre based on an integrative, system of systems approach can be used to leverage information from various data sources to anticipate and resolve problems even before they are presented, coordinate various resources and processes to operate seamlessly, and generally make more strategic decisions. Excerpted from: Staying ahead of the game, A transformative, integrative approach to the Infrastructure Value Chain by Rashesh Mody and Madhusudhan Krishnamoorthy.
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SMART CITIES MUST BOUNCE BACK FROM DISASTERS If cities are to ensure continuity in the face of disaster, to rebuild quickly after an untoward event, they must possess high levels of urban resilience.
With planned streets, hydroelectric water conservation systems, and neighbourhoods designed to protect residents from noise pollution, the ancient Indus Valley Civilization cities of Dholavira and Lothal reveal how humanity’s desire for urban welfare stretches back millennia. A thousand miles away – and 5,000 years down the line – sits Nava Raipur. As the new capital of the Indian state of Chattisgarh, Nava Raipur bridges every aspect of urban governance. Its command-and-control centre is supported by AVEVA’s Unified Operation Centre. For Nava Raipur’s administration, the commandand-control centre acts as a hub of real-time system information, situational awareness, and response. Such a combined smart city solution is like a city in a box. This integrated, single-window approach paid off during the recent coronavirus crisis, improving decision making in emergency situations. With real-time insight into all of the city’s critical infrastructure systems, Nava Raipur was able to match supply and demand with greater accuracyand respond to emergencies as they arose. Response times were cut by an average of 60%.
BOUNCE BACK
This kind of resilience against urban threats has become a priority for governments around the world in the wake of the pandemic. If cities are to ensure continuity in the face of disaster, to rebuild quickly and thrive after an untoward event, they must possess high levels of urban resilience. By linking together smart infrastructure, interconnected communities, and good governance, cities can cope with and bounce back quickly from even the most challenging crisis.
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RASHESH MODY,
Head of Monitoring and Control, AVEVA.
Resilience against urban threats has become a priority for governments around the world in the wake of the pandemic Each of these aspects is brought together within cloud computing, which will provide the digital infrastructure of these smart cities. Because of its agile, flexible nature, the cloud becomes the repository for all a smart city data, provides the computing power necessary to operate the increasing number of systems, and connects individuals and business units in varied locations. The pandemic has accelerated demands for digital transformation in every sector. Smart
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cities can leverage these connected layers to build resilience. As more aspects of a city are connected into an Internet of Things, data is collected from smart devices of all kinds. With command-and-control centre or a digital twin, artificial intelligence can analyse this data against multiple historical, socioeconomic, and other factors to generate actionable insights and predict imminent events, allowing the opportunity for decision makers to embed resilience across the board with anticipatory planning.
SYSTEM OF SYSTEMS
Such a system of systems integration can eliminate data silos, promote cross-functional collaboration, and optimise city governments’ capacity for faster, more informed decisions. The result is not just a quick and efficient crisis response. Policymakers can also model a variety of different possible scenarios, anticipate their probability, and then test each hypothesis to identify the highestvalue solution and determine the most beneficial outcome – all while freeing up human analysts’ time for more pressing issues. When so much flexibility is available to city leaders, resilience becomes the norm. Imagine how administrators could have responded to a freak snowstorm in Texas if they had been warned several months in advance. But unified, data-driven approaches deliver in other ways. Resilience can help shape a more sustainable future for every resident of a smart city. Bringing the most advanced technology into a unified data environment enables teams to maximise performance, minimise costs and delays, and build out efficient operations. Consequently, energy is used more efficiently, and emissions are minimised, both outright through smart models and as a byproduct of reducing the need for emergency alerts and rework.
CONNECTED WORKERS
The lessons of the last year prove that digital transformation can help organisations evolve into location-agnostic entities that connect remote workers and release productivity dividends in the process. As people who do not remember a time
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As people who do not remember a time without smartphones enter the workforce, our role is becoming less about procedural KPIs
without smartphones enter the workforce, our role as humans is becoming less about repetition or transactional and procedural KPIs. Today’s connected workers are being valued for the visionary insights they bring to their roles, and how they use industrial digital assistants to unlock ever greater value. The command-and-control centre and digital twins are just lenses that develop the understanding of a smart city. As technologies, they only begin to truly deliver value when combined with human insight and capability, in the hands of the connected worker. Digital transformation initiatives of the past year have underscored the critical role of technology in facilitating the smart city of the future, connecting information and process silos with a common digital thread that extends across the urban value chain and creates innumerable opportunities to unlock new value for tomorrow’s citizens. As we transition towards a new normal in a post-pandemic world, digital capabilities will increasingly act as a barometer for economic resilience.
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LEVERAGING INFRASTRUCTURE
4.0 FOR SMART CITIES
Smart infrastructure management has an essential role to play in solving the challenges facing planning authorities now and in the future.
US President Joe Biden’s Infrastructure Investments and Jobs Act enhances transport with faster and safer roads and bridges and improves security, streamlines supply chains through investments in ports and airports, and addresses water quality and resiliency.Similar infrastructure upgrades are being rolled out around the world, and not a moment too soon. From the EU to China, India and Australia, spending on transport systems, communications networks and utility supplies are being ramped up in 2022 and beyond.The growing importance and increasing need for a smarter, more reliable, and resilient infrastructure is being recognised around the world. Several challenges are forcing governments to build back better. Climate change is a contributing factor, but it is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Aging infrastructure assets and rapid urbanisation have led to fragile service networks that are susceptible to interruption. A jump in physical and cybersecurity threats, volatile energy prices that drive cost variability, and a shift to the Green Energy Mix that makes energy demand response vulnerable to disruption are other factors. Each plays its part. A modernised infrastructure increases reliability and availability of interdependent service networks. Various stakeholders and city planners can take faster and better-informed decisions while speeding up crisis response. Operators need to modernise infrastructure operations, to avoid disruptions and to ensure resilience and availability of service networks and facilities.
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GARY WONG,
Global Industry Principal, Infrastructure and Water, AVEVA
Decentralised solutions are more important than ever in recent times Infrastructure authorities are leveraging technology to deliver holistic outcomes that enhance quality of life for their citizens, while also improving environmental, social, and economic outcomes. In the process, digital tools are being integrated into physical assets for optimum and responsive solutions, a transformation referred to as Infrastructure 4.0. By using technology as an enabler, with a focus on improving outcomes for people and nature, it is possible to ensure infrastructure serves as a platform to connect the built environment, natural world and human lives in a way that allows all three to thrive.
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Such smart infrastructures pay off in many ways. They invariably contribute to the drive to net-zero carbon emissions. The safety and security — whether physical or cyber — of goods, people, and assets is also enhanced. And a modernised infrastructure tends to have better regulatory compliance.
BREAK DOWN SILOS
Smart cities such as Nava Raipur are reaping the benefits of a system of systemsapproach to solve complex challenges they face. To thrive in the challenging times we live in, city operators require a seamless integration of their systems, sites, assets, and people with those of partner stakeholders from different entities. A unified operations centre can serve as a centralised, single-window view to help all parties involved make informed decisions.
OPTIMISE OPERATIONS
For the Port of Portland, Oregon, streamlining operations has helped move more than 30 million tons of cargo through its facilities each year, reducing inventory in the electric and equipment shops by at least 65%. Preventive maintenance and asset management help port authorities connect people and assets with real-time data that optimises operations, predicts outcomes, and provides risk-based guidance, thereby ensuring business continuity, maximising return on capital, and enhancing safety and reliability.
SERVICE RELIABILITY
Efficient transportation networks require realtime monitoring and control solutions. Railway operators, for example, have hundreds of trains and thousands of individual operations at any moment. They need highly robust operational technologies to fulfil real-time information flows, reliability of communications, and system redundancy. Through an integrated package of operations management interface, data historian, and HMI visualisation software, an operator can achieve remote management of rail processes alongside centralised network monitoring.
REDUCE COSTS
Utilities, including water and wastewater, need highly efficient methods of engineering, optimisation of energy supply, and contextualised compliance monitoring to maintain safety, service uptime and
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From the EU to China, India and Australia, spending on transport systems, communications and utilities are being ramped up in
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delivery at affordable costs. Digital transformation can achieve revenue efficiencies in terms of both operating expenditure and capital expenditure.By combining data streams from disparate assets into a mapping software, it is possible to detect water leaks. Decentralised solutions have more important than ever in recent times, in part to offer better durability, scalability and efficiency. The Shanghai Laogang Project, the world’s largest waste-to-energy plant, achieves all these by streamlining its supply chain operations. By turning data from multiple information sources and systems into actionable insights, engineering teams across the organisation were able to improve collaborative workflows. Similarly, 3D engineering design software enhanced collaboration, slashed project costs, and avoided more than 200 construction clashes. Infrastructure projects that deploy up-to-date digital solutions report common gains such as increased resilience, reductions in total expenditure costs, collaborative global environments, quicker and more effective operations cycles, reduced waste and emissions, and better efficiencies across the value chain. Smart infrastructure management has an essential role to play in solving the challenges facing planning authorities now and in the future.The faster we embrace Infrastructure 4.0, the quicker the dividends ahead of us.
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HELPING ALL THREE TO THRIVE Built environment, natural world, human lives City planners can take faster and informed decisions while speeding up crisis response
The importance and need for a smarter, reliable, resilient infrastructure is being recognised around the world
Aging infrastructure assets and rapid urbanisation have led to fragile service networks susceptible to interruption
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COVER STORY
Infrastructure authorities are leveraging technology to deliver holistic outcomes that enhance quality of life for citizens
Smart infrastructure has an essential role to play in solving challenges facing planning authorities now and in the future
A modernised infrastructure increases reliability of interdependent service networks
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DATA INTEGRATION AND CLOUD Helping smart cities to bounce back
Cloud computing provides the digital infrastructure of smart cities because of its agile, flexible nature
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Cloud provides computing power necessary to operate increasing systems and connects individuals and business in varied locations. asia.biznesstransform.com
COVER STORY By linking together smart infrastructure, interconnected communities, and good governance, cities can bounce back from challenging crisis.
Smart cities can leverage connected layers to build resilience.
As more aspects of a city are connected into Internet of Things, data is collected from smart devices.
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A SYSTEMS OF SYSTEMS APPROACH Boosting connected workers in smart cities
Digital transformation can help organisations evolve into location-agnostic entities that connect remote workers and release productivity dividends.
As people who do not remember a time without smartphones enter the workforce, our role as humans is becoming less about procedural KPIs.
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COVER STORY A system of systems can eliminate data silos, promote cross-functional collaboration, and city governments’ capacity for faster decisions.
Connected workers are being valued for visionary insights they bring to their roles, and how they use industrial digital assistants to unlock ever greater value.
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HOW KOHIMA IS TRANSFORMING INTO A
SMART CITY Kohima worked with AVEVA to develop an Integrated Cross-city Command Centre to centralise and optimise energy-efficient sustainable management of the city.
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ohima is the capital city of India’s north eastern state of Nagaland and, with a growing population of almost 300,000, is the second largest city in the state. The city lies on the foothills of the mountain range, an area renowned for its raw natural beauty, ethnic diversity, and biodiversity, as well as increasing popularity asa tourism destination. The city was the site of one of the most valiant battles of World War II and, as such, is also a city of rich historical significance and cultural heritage – as well as being one of 100 cities recognised in India’s Smart City Mission.
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In fostering development for the city, Kohima worked with AVEVA to develop an Integrated Cross-city Command Centre and technology platform, comprising a range of Internet of Everything, artificial intelligence, and Internet of Things solutions to centralise and optimise energy-efficient sustainable management of the city, as well as improve the efficiency of its smart solutions. AVEVA’s Unified Operations Centre smart city template is the digital backbone of the command centre. It helps the city realise sustainable improvements in energy
Kohima aims to leverage its new Integrated Crosscity Command Centre platform and geo-strategic location to foster smart city innovation
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INDIA’S SMART CITIES MISSION With a backing of $13 billion, the Indian Smart Cities Mission was launched by the Indian government in 2015. Its focus is supporting investments in technology to drive sustainable, economic, and urban growth for 100 model cities around the country. Successful cities such as Kohima were selected following completion of the countrywide Smart Cities challenge, in which entrants imagined their ideal future and created a roadmap for harnessing the potential of data to increase quality of life and address complex urban and environmental challenges.
efficiency and quality of life, with controlled city traffic, smart street lighting, city pollution monitoring and control, smart surveillance, and a Wi-Fi enabled community notification service. The city’s multiple subsystems are integrated, monitored, and controlled from a central location by leveraging AVEVA’s Unified Operations Centre template, which provides end-to-end visibility and optimises operations, all while mitigating costly system downtime, reducing maintenance call outs, and enhancing civic life for the city’s expanding population. Key to the deployment was the simple-to-use Graphical User Interface, which helped ensure multiple data sources were consolidated in real
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As part of the Indian Smart Cities Mission, other cities will apply the Smart City Integrated Command Centre solution to their own Smart City plans and aspirations
time and shared with multi-site teams. The GUI also provided transparency into critical KPIs by identifying incidents and tracking them to closure, giving remote teams the abilityto monitor data on mobile devices and take timely corrective action. Based on a systems-of-systems approach, AVEVA’s Unified Operations Centre amalgamates both process and non-process information sources including HMI, SCADA, analytics, cameras, GIS maps, and ERP systems. As a result, disparate teams can more easily collaborate in real time, thereby enhancing business agility and response times, while ensuring optimum management and efficiency of critical resources. Kohima aims to leverage its new Integrated Crosscity Command Centre platform and geo-strategic location to foster continued sustainable, resilient community-led smart city innovation, acting as a regional hub for tourism and transit, while preserving its natural and cultural assets. Further civic developments planned include the rejuvenation of the cityscape and continued transformation of Kohima into a more touristfriendly city by creating pedestrian walkways, giving a facelift to city façades, upgrading local sports complexes, and building new attractive bazaars, open spaces, and recreational areas. Kohima also plans to develop a city centre in the heart of the city, which will include world-class amenities, including a hotel, state-of-the-art shopping centre, sports complex, multi-level car parking, digital library, roof top cafes, and community amphitheatre. As part of the Indian Smart Cities Mission, other cities, including the southern city of Namchi, will apply the Smart City Integrated Command Centre solution to their own Smart City plans and aspirations – where it will similarly help to set a new standard in sustainable civic innovation, while enhancing the quality of life and wellbeing of citizens.
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IMPLEMENTATION SNAP SHOT As a result of the AVEVA’s Unified Operations Centre installation consolidating a multitude of civic application inputs, the team realised new levels of efficiency. AVEVA’s Unified Operations Centre is the foundation for real-time operational performance management for infrastructure and process industry organisations providing closed-loop enterprise-wide visibility to optimise assets and operations. Unified Operations Centre provides an enhanced layer of intelligence ensuring that data works in service to organisational goals. Engineering, Operations and Performance measures can be calculated from the site level down to the asset level. This brings end-toend operational visibility across facilities helping you improve safety, operational efficiency, and ultimately the profit margins of your business.
GAINS l
Energy savings of approximately 20% for the city as a result of the integrated ICCC technology platform.
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Automated smart street lights, buildings, and other civic sites with integrated set points and thresholds allowed the team to manage and minimise city energy consumption.
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Time to market was improved by 3 months, with the solution helping ensure the project was designed and deployed ahead of time.
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The AVEVA’s Unified Operations Centre template helped to ensure the solution was designed and deployed quicker than originally forecasted, while avoiding extended implementation and manual interventions.
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Operational efficiency increased by approximately 40%, with several critical civic service KPIs and notifications enabling teams to take immediate corrective preventive action.
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Integration of several city-level KPIs and critical incident management with workflows and notifications enables city administrators to mitigate potential risk to the community with timely corrective action.
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Maintenance and call out times and costs were reduced, with teams able to better predict asset issues and maintenance requirements in advance.
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Deliver on Kohima’s vision of fostering innovative, sustainable, and resilient community-led development, while becoming a regional hub for tourism and transit. Centralise and improve the energy efficiency of the city including surveillance, traffic management, e-assets, data hubs, environment monitoring, and street lighting applications. Improve the quality of life and civic services for the city’s 290,000+ residents.
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Lack of insight and transparency into disparate municipality services and applications.
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Lack of consolidated data, impacting response time for service personnel and residents and contributing to costly system downtime and maintenance impacts.
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Bolstering city resilience and improving utilisation, while ensuring management of the city’s physical and environmental resources.
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BUILDING A
SMART STATE CAPITAL THROUGH INTEGRATION
To form the city’s infrastructure backbone, a technology platform connects eight primary operational systems into an Integrated Command and Control Centre.
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ava Raipur Atal Nagar, located in central India, is the country’s first metropolitan greenfield Smart City and a beacon for Smart City planning, development, and operation worldwide. In 2000, when India established Chhattisgarh as its ninth-largest state at a population of 29 million people, municipal authorities quickly identified the need for a new state capital. Nava Raipur or new Raipurwas
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commissioned to be the state’s future economic and financial nucleus. For the new capital, urban developers needed to deliver an environmentally friendly, well-planned city to bring forth all the latest amenities of a successful Smart City. Nava Raipur was planned from the ground up to deliver quality of life through safety, efficiency, sustainability, and liveability. Adopting world-class land use planning
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The city was designed to be a model for smart growth and resilience, to accommodate a population of 600,000 citizens by
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principles, the city has established a dedicated zoning system for residential, commercial, and industrial sectors. Recreational space accounts for nearly 30% of the geographical plan. The city includes Asia’s largest manmade reservoir and other recreational facilities like its Jungle Safari, a sports stadium, adventure sports venues, a musical fountain, and more. The city was designed to be a model for smart growth and resilience, to accommodate a population of 600,000 citizens by 2031. Worldwide, rapid urbanisation has pressured city resources and challenged management infrastructure. In planning and building a world-class greenfield city from the ground up, authorities were aware of the critical technology investment required for sustainability and
operational efficiency to achieve a high liveability ranking and manage the city’s rapid growth. The senior team therefore decided to invest in Smart City software, developing an information and communications technology infrastructure plan to underpin efficient, optimised city operations. Nava Raipur Atal Nagar Vikas Pradhikaran, NRANVP leadership turned to AVEVA to achieve this vision. To form the city’s infrastructural backbone, AVEVA experts connected the city’s eight primary operational systems into an Integrated Command and Control Centre powered by AVEVA Unified Operation Centre. This platform acted as a hub for real-time system information, situational awareness, and response, including water, power, street lighting, public transportation, traffic management, CCTV, contact
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centres, and e-governance. The combined Smart City solution enhances sustainability and operational efficiency, delivering civic services to citizens, communities, businesses, and other stakeholders. “We had engaged PwC as a consultant and asked them to work with us to develop our plan. They created a tender for a technology partner. As we look to the future, we are confident that AVEVA has the software technology we need to scale and grow our operations capabilities, enabling us to support the development of Nava Raipur as a Smart City hub for Chhattisgarh,” says NN Ekka, CEO, Nava Raipur Atal Nagar Vikas Pradhikaran. Making use of its Unified Operations Centre, the AVEVA team designed a first-of-its-kind Integrated Command and Control Centre, Integrated Cross-city Command Centre platform toact as a brain and decision support system for all city operations with a single-pane-of-glass interface for camera feeds, GIS, map-based status, and real-time dashboards. The platform provides municipal teams visibility across various departmental operations and enables them to visualise key information with geotagged alerts, alarms, incidences, events, critical city asset performance, and resources utilisation. The facility also the enables the city operation team to assume control of various operations and systems from the central Integrated Cross-city Command Centre during critical incidents or emergencies. The platform is enriched by enterprise workflow capabilities that support collaboration and information sharing, enabling teams to manage incidents through standard operating procedures. This improves response time and accountability while optimising resource usage and assuring uninterrupted citizen services. The Integrated Cross-city Command Centre’s operational
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capabilities are enhanced through AVEVA asset performance management software, which tracks life cycles of critical assets with predictive failure and alerts to ensure better asset availability and performance, resulting in lower capex expenditure. In the first phase of the project, the team focused on integrating six key city systems. These included: l Rapid transit solution for buses to improve public transportation l CCTV systems to enhance public safety l Traffic speed detection and rule violation monitoringto improve traffic circulation l Supervisory control and data acquisition systems and actuated valves and pumps to improve water and sewerage systems l Smart grid outage management system and distribution management system solutions to improve power distribution l Building management solutions to manage energy consumption and streamline the operation of government buildings and citizen contact centres. All these systems are integrated with the Integrated Cross-city Command Centre, meaning the team can now directly monitor information on the following: l Roads and transportation l Water and wastewater l Electricity generation l Transmission and supplies l LED street lighting l Social and recreational activities l Government offices’ energy and resource use l Residential energy and resource use l City’s green civic systems. Integration through Integrated Cross-city Command Centrealso enables users to centralised critical operations, exceptions, and emergencies and provides direct control of the following: l Water l Sewage l Power l Streetlights l building management systems l CCTV systems
The city is also exploring the possibility to extend the Integrated Crosscity Command Centre facilities to manage other cities in Chhattisgarh state
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“Using the Integrated Cross-city Command Centre, we now have real-time insight into all critical infrastructure systems across the city. This enables us to match supply and demand with greater accuracy, and respond to emergencies as they arise, cutting response times by 60% on an average. During the recent lockdowns, Integrated Crosscity Command Centre combined with the Smart City portal made it easier for municipal authorities to communicate with the general population and respond to the needs of affected citizens, supporting the containment process,” says Salil Srivastava, Engineer-in-Chief and Municipal Manager. The Integrated Cross-city Command Centre implementation of a citywide operation platform enhanced operational efficiency to the next level, resulting in higher liveability index. These new systems benefit Nava Raipur’s growing population of citizens in various ways: l Unified portal integrates all citizen services through a common interface and mobile app, which is more user-friendly for citizens to access. l Citizens can now make one automated annuity payment, making it easier for people affected
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by building projects to receive benefits. This payment includes distribution of compensation for housing allocations and land loss, too. l Citizens can also secure planning permission through the online system, or even apply for new water connections. They can also make online payments, file documents, and get communications updates, all using online tools. l 24x7 uninterrupted water and power supply is secured, with real-time monitoring and control through state-of-the-art electrical and water SCADA systems integrated with the Integrated Cross-city Command Centre. l Easier for municipal authorities to enforce traffic rules using speed detection and automatic number plate recognition to reduce accidents and increase traffic safety and driver discipline. The Integrated Cross-city Command Centrealso makes day-to-day operation of the cityeasier for the city management staff by: l Bringing accountability into the city administration with end-to-end operational
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The city is also exploring the possibility to extend the Integrated Cross-city Command Centre facilities to manage other cities in Chhattisgarh state
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visibility to stakeholders via mobile app and through Integrated Cross-city Command Centre dashboards. Public bus transportation, traffic management, law and order, LED street light operations, building management, utility operations, land allotment, water connection billing and payment, right to information requests, grievances, etc. Centralisation of departmental systems within the Integrated Cross-city Command Centre enables a collaborative, multi-agency response driven by standard operating procedures during emergencies. Fasterresponse due to centralisation of critical operations like emergency response, fire outbreaks and accidents, and utility incidents. This ensures quick restoration of services, taking control over assets like values, pumps, building management systems, streetlights, and cameras as deemed necessary. Real-time integration of utility control systems with Integrated Cross-city Command Centre enhances operational efficiency by providing rapid assessment, planning, and management of electrical, water, and sewage
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systems to optimise demand and supply. Reduction in operations and maintenance costs due to asset performance management capabilities. As the first phase of its plan reaches completion, Nava Raipur meets all the promises of a Smart City – smart governance, smart energy, smart building, smart mobility, smart infrastructure, smart technology, smart healthcare, and smart, enabled citizens. Nava Raipur will soon be embarking on the second phase of its plan, which will focus on education, heath, e-environmental management, an emergency call centre, and other features. The city is also exploring with AVEVA the possibility to extend the Integrated Cross-city Command Centre facilities to manage other cities in Chhattisgarh state. The city’s strategic vision is being achieved and constantly improved as a result of the unified systems and processes the team is putting in place. Today, Nava Raipur is a beacon for India’s Smart City programme, providing a template for the one hundred Smart Cities being developed across India to follow. l
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GOALS • •
IMPLEMENTATION SNAP SHOT Making use of its Unified Operations Centre, the AVEVA team designed an Integrated Cross-city Command Centre platform to act as a brain and decision support system for all city operations. The platform provides municipal teams visibility across various departmental operations. The platform is enriched by enterprise workflow capabilities that support collaboration and information sharing, enabling teams to manage incidents through standard operating procedures. The Integrated Cross-city Command Centre’s operational capabilities are enhanced through AVEVA asset performance management software, which tracks life cycles of critical assets with predictive failure and alerts to ensure better asset availability and performance, resulting in lower capex expenditure.
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To construct a world-class greenfield smart city To achieve high liveability through civic operational efficiency To develop an infrastructure and operations plan to underpin optimised city management
CHALLENGES • • •
To deliver the first environmentally sustainable smart city as the new capital of Chhattisgarh state. To use optimised solutions to meet the needs of citizens and businesses. To enhance quality of life through safe, efficient, sustainable civic amenities and planning systems.
GAINS • •
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Real-time insight and management of critical infrastructure systems across the city. Better management of supply and demand for crucial civic services including water, streetlighting, electrical and sewerage services, in real time. Nava Raipur is a lighthouse for the Indian Government’s National Smart Cities Mission
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MAKING NAMCHI A SMART CITY TO SUPPORT TOURISM Namchi worked with AVEVA to develop an Integrated Cross-city Command Centre platform, to optimise energy-efficient sustainable management of the city.
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amchi, which means sky-high in Sikkimese, is nestled among the hills of Sikkim in northeast India and is the second most populated district of the state. At an elevation of 5,500 feet, the city has panoramic views of the snowcapped mountains and vast stretches of rolling hills below. It attracts flocks of visitors who come for the unmatched views of the Rangeet valley and the Kanchenjunga, the third-highest mountain in the world. Namchi is also one of 100 cities recognised in India’s Smart City Mission. To foster innovative, sustainable, and
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resilient development for the city, Namchi worked with AVEVA to develop an Integrated Cross-city Command Centre and technology platform, to centralise and optimise energy-efficient sustainable management of the city. Greater insight into critical city infrastructure and assets is also instrumental in the project’s success, helping ensure their longevity, reliability, and optimum usage rates. AVEVA also worked with technology partner, Krystal Integrated Systems, and a variety of OEMs on the deployment of the project. Namchi is now an ecologically responsible and a vibrant community supported by a robust local economy and a cosmopolitan culture, offering lifestyle and quality of life for its citizens
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AVEVA worked with technology partner, Krystal Integrated Systems, and a variety of OEMs on the deployment of the project
and tourists alike. Alongside ongoing efficient and effective civic governance though the Integrated Crosscity Command Centre, the city is focusing on continued innovation and economic regeneration by promoting a tourism-based economy and creating sports- and adventuretourism assets. Namchi strives to provide enhanced physical infrastructure and civic services, while continuing to protect its ecological significance and optimise the potential of its precious renewable energy sources. Namchi’s Smart City Integrated Command Centre solution is now being replicated in similar smart infrastructure projects throughout India.
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GAINS •
For Namchi, because AVEVA’s Unified Operations Centre installation consolidated a multitude of civic and field application inputs, the team realised higher levels of efficiency.
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With automated smart street lights, buildings, and other civic sites with integrated set points and thresholds, the team managed and minimised city energy consumption. It realised energy savings of approximately 20%.
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The Unified Operations Centre template ensured the solution was designed and deployed quicker than originally forecasted while avoiding extended implementation and manual interventions. There was faster time-to-market by three months.
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There was an increase in operational efficiency by approximately 40%, with several critical civic service KPIs and notifications enabling teams to take immediate corrective preventive action.
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By integrating multiple level KPIs, notifications, and incident management within workflows, the solution enabled city administrators to mitigate potential risk to the community with timely corrective action.
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SECURING US CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE AGAINST RUSSIAN CYBER THREATS All US critical infrastructure sectors continue to undergo digital transformationrepresenting efficiency, but these shifts also introduce gaps in security.
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nowing what the threat is, the impact it could have on your systems and how to respond is far more important than knowing where the threat is coming from.Understanding where the threat is coming from is useful from the perspective of national cyber strategy, defense and intelligence. It can also help determine how to prioritise remediations based onthe motivations of threat actors. Beyond that, knowing where a threat is coming from has little impact on how an organisation responds. For almost all
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organisations, cybersecurity risk management practices are the same regardless of whether the attack is coming from the Russians, other nation states, cyber criminals or other bad actors. Ransomware against critical infrastructure providers is incredibly profitable for cybercriminals, as demonstrated by the Conti ransomware data leaks. The Conti group and its affiliates reportedly made use of over 30 known vulnerabilities, some of which were first disclosed in 2018. The Conti bitcoin wallet data showed more than $1 billion had been paid, creating a massive funding method for Russian actors.
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AMIT YORAN Chairman and CEO, Tenable.
Ransomware is also a very flexible weapon, demonstrated by Russianattributed malware BlackEnergy and CrashOverride
Ransomware is also a very flexible weapon, as demonstrated by the Russianattributed malware BlackEnergy and CrashOverride, both of which were used in attacks against the Ukrainian power gridand were very sophisticated and modular with payloads that could be delivered in near real-time to the victim. Two separate indictments from
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the Department of Justice were unsealed on March 25, charging four Russian nationals for extensive hacking campaigns against critical infrastructure providers worldwide. Last week, President Biden warned of the potential for Russian cyberattacks against the United States in response to the economic costs we have imposed following the invasion of Ukraine. He urged governors, private sector partners and critical infrastructure providers to harden their cyber defences immediately. The White House also issued a Fact Sheet, Act Now to Protect Against Potential Cyberattacks,that called for companies to deploy multi-factor authentication, continuous monitoring and threat mitigation, to make sure systems are patched and protected against all known vulnerabilities, build security into products from the ground up, and use modern tools to check for known and potential vulnerabilities. Critical infrastructure is not one thing, and most critical infrastructure industries vastly differ. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, CISAhas identified 16 critical infrastructure sectors in the US, including financial services, energy providers, water and wastewater treatment facilities, and transportation systems. There is no singular defense paradigm that could effectively be applied across all the sectors. Some critical infrastructure providers have a high degree of cybersecurity preparedness, strong risk understanding and risk management practices, and very strong security programs. Others are woefully ill prepared. All critical infrastructure sectors continue to undergo digital transformation, resulting in an expanding cyberattack surface. New technology investments represent great
efficiency opportunities, like the move to smart factories and smart cities, but these shifts can introduce real gaps in security. Withoutenhancements to security and resiliency, critical infrastructure providers are left unprepared to address cyberthreats. Just this week, a new report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Trellix, yet again, put this lack of preparedness in writing. The report, based on survey results from 800 IT decision makers from several countries around the world, including the United States, found that 9% of critical infrastructure operators don’t even have a cybersecurity strategy in place, despite the fact that 85% of respondents believe they have been targeted by a nation-state cyberthreat. Certain critical infrastructure sectors better understand strategic risk assessments and cyber risk management as a discipline. Generally speaking, the cybersecurity practices in these markets and industries have been more highly regulated than others. For example, the financial services sector has long relied on IT and has built strong cyber risk management processes and practices. Most modern banks realise that, in many ways, they are technology companies. For decades, everything from bank accounts to transactions to data analytics have been digitised, resulting in a culture of strong security practices. These security practices have been encouraged through a high level of regulation and oversight. While dramatic differences can be found in the security readiness of individual banks, the sector as a whole has strong security and is resilient as a critical infrastructure. For years, the electric industry operated on voluntary compliance of reliability standards, but
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following the Northeast blackout of 2003, Congress authorised the mandatory development of reliability standards, which included cybersecurity Energy Policy Act of 2005. Due, in part, to regulation by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission FERC, which oversees the reliable operation of the bulk power system, the electric sector has improved cyber resiliency. FERC certified the North American Electric Reliability Corporation NERC to oversee electric reliability, and as part of its definition of resilience, included cybersecurity as critical. Today, cybersecurity standards in the energy sector continue to be developed and enforced by NERC resulting in improved security and reliability. As IT and operational technology OT systems become increasingly interconnected, even some well managed critical infrastructure sectors remain at risk. For example, some industries, such as mining, chemical plants and fuel pipelines, already have safety systems to prevent destruction of physical infrastructure and bodily harm or loss of life. However, as organisations
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increasingly interconnect their IT and OT systems in the pursuit of improved efficiency, more control settings become digitised. As a result, the effectiveness of some of these safety measures may be brought into question. Other critical infrastructure sectors have not prioritised cyber and are largely blindsided by cyber as a strategic risk. Some of these sectors have not historically thought of interconnectivity, access, complexity and digitisation as strategic cyber risk and haven’t been regulated in that way. For example, many healthcare providers and hospitals have long viewed IT as a cost efficiency play for automation and sharing information when needed to provide better care, not necessarily a strategic asset. Consequently, attackers have caught many healthcare organisations off guard. A closer look at the data reveals stark differences among critical infrastructure sectors. According to Tenable’s own vulnerability data, financial services organisations and organisations in the energy sector, which encompasses more
than the electric sector, average about the same number of critical vulnerabilities per device, showing a relative approximation in the maturity of their cyber practices. Contrast that with healthcare and manufacturing, which average twice as many critical vulnerabilities per device. The median time for financial services and energy sector organisations to remediate a critical vulnerability is approximately 12 days, while manufacturing and healthcare average 29 and 32 days,respectively. This gap provides adversaries ample opportunity and highlights the sample disparities in the cyber maturity of these sectors. There are fundamental steps all providers must take, from knowing what’s on their network and how those systems are vulnerable to addressing those exposures, and from controlling user access and privileges to managing critical systems that are interconnected, that will make it harder for bad actors to compromise critical infrastructures.
Excerpted from the written Testimony by Amit Yoran, Chairman and CEO, Tenable, given to House Committee on Homeland Security on 30 March 2022.
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GOVERNMENTS FACE NONTECHNICAL CHALLENGES IN TRANSFORMATION Siloed strategy and decision making, risk-averse culture and insufficient budgets are the biggest challenges to scaling in digital transformation.
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overnment CIOs trying to scale digital solutions face a range of obstacles, many of the biggest of which are not technical. Taking direct action on these issues, which can range from breaking down organisational silos to mitigating digital skills gaps and a lack of resources, is critical to digital transformation in government. If these challenges are left unaddressed, digital government programs run the risk of losing sustained funding and, of course, the ability for organisations to leverage the promised benefits of digital solutions. Gartner research shows that the majority of governments have yet to scale digital solutions across their organisations. It IS important to understand the biggest obstacles.
CHALLENGE #2 RISK-AVERSE CULTURE
Cultures that resist change are particularly common among frontline and service delivery workforces, which are often risk-averse and see no benefit in making changes to what they perceive as tried-and-true practices. In this environment, a CIO driving a technology-led transformation faces a particularly acute challenge. To succeed, align your digital transformation programs with business outcomes and make organisational change the core element of such programs. Action steps l Work with business leaders across your organisation to assess the cultural impediments and catalysts for digital transformation. l Roll out a digital leadership professional development programme across the government and within your IT organisation.
CHALLENGE #1 ORGANISATIONAL SILOS
Fifty-one percent of respondents identified siloed strategies and decision making as a highpriority challenge. The subject of organisational silos is a constant concern, as it impacts every aspect of a successful digital transformation, from strategy to funding to implementation. Such silos exist across governments, departments and business areas, and each of them requires a specific intervention. Action steps Clarify roles and dependencies strategies to establish ownership of the digital strategy’s development and accountability for its success. l Establish decision-making principles for prioritising, funding and delivering crosssilo digital initiatives. l
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CHALLENGE #3 INSUFFICIENT FUNDING
Often, insufficient budgets are symptomatic of siloed strategies and decision making, but they can also result from the perception of technology expenditure as an operational rather than a strategic investment. To combat this perception, clearly demonstrate the correlation between your investment in digital technology and the business outcomes it delivers.
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Action steps Be agile and flexible in order to identify and leverage sporadic funding opportunities, aligning or reprioritising
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BY DEAN LACHECA Senior Director Analyst, Gartner.
KEY TAKEAWAYS Align digital transformation programs with business outcomes and make change the core element of such programmes. The subject of organisational silos is a concern, as it impacts every aspect of a successful digital transformation Direct action to tackle hurdles will include governance frameworks, culture and consensus building, digital upskilling. Cultures that resist change are common among frontline and service delivery workforces
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your digital investments with the business-outcome-driven criteria of available funding. Articulate your vision for a digitally transformed future that reflects local political prioritiesand is backed by an implementation plan capable of delivering timely results to business leaders.
CHALLENGE #4 DIGITAL SKILLS GAPS
An insufficient depth or breadth of digital skills across the organisation is the fourth most common digital transformation challenge for government CIOs. Core specialist competencies in areas such as enterprise architecture, cybersecurity, cloud, analytics and digital experience design are vital to successful digital transformation programs. At the same time, it is important to increase the degree of change readiness by developing digital dexterity across the entire organisation. Action steps l Offer experiences outside employees’ functional silos. Identify experiences that help them understand the multifaceted nature of digital business and build expertise in business areas that are critical to the organisation’s digital business plans. l Create experience-based career paths, not positionbased, to provide employees with multiple career path options and cross-functional experiences.
CHALLENGE #5 LACK OF IT-BUSINESS RESOURCES
Twenty-eight percent of respondents cited IT talent shortage as a major challenge, inhibiting adoption among major technology domains such as platform services, security, digital workplace and IT automation. The lack of timely access to IT, business and subject matter experts is often a direct outcome of disconnected priorities,
It is important to increase change readiness by developing digital dexterity across the entire organisation.
siloed decision making and cultural challenges. While teaching employees how to use self-service digital, lowcode technologies is useful, it takes a lot more to prepare them for complex digital business environments. Building the digital dexterity of IT resources and closing digital skills gaps across the organisation can have a positive impact on resourcing. However, given the postpandemic acceleration in digital investments across all industries, CIOs will need to make a concerted effort to ensure adequate resources are deployed to the right initiatives in a timely way. Action steps l Press for an executivesponsored digital dexterity programme that invests in communication and education at every level of the organisation to build digital dexterity, and ensure the organisation has the right capabilities and culture to support, not impede the digital programme.
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GLOBAL TRENDS IN EXASCALE COMPUTING SYSTEMS To reach new performance highs, engineers are taking a heterogeneous approach, consisting of integrated CPUs and GPUs and iterative optimisation.
BY ROGER BENSON Senior Director Commercial EMEA, AMD.
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echnologists have now found innovative ways to overcome challenges to usher in what is being called the exascale era of computing. An exascale system is one that can perform a quintillion floating-point operations per second FLOPS. That’s a billion billion or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 - which means exascale machines can solve
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calculations five times faster than today’s top supercomputers, and also run more complex, higher precision models. To reach these new performance highs, engineers are taking a heterogeneous approach, consisting of integrated CPUs and GPUs and iterative optimisation of both hardware and software in order to reach new levels of performance and efficiency at a lower cost per FLOPS. Nowhere is this better demonstrated than with the Frontier supercomputer being developed at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility in the United States, which is set to make history as the world’s first operational exascale supercomputer when it is switched on later this year. The machine, which will accelerate innovation in science and technology and help the US maintain leadership in high-performance computing and AI, is powered by 3rd-gen
EPYC CPUs and Radeon Instinct GPUs and will deliver more than 1.5 exaflops of peak processing power. There is an even more powerful Exascale-class system, called El Capitan, anticipated to be built at Lawrence Livermore National Labs in 2023 in the United States. Japan was first to market with its own FUGAKU 1.42 exaflops peak performance supercomputer and China is reportedly operating a less publicised Sunway Oceanlite 1.32 exaflops peak performance system. Europe is taking a more collaborative approach with the government-funded European High-Performance Computing Joint Undertaking, which was initiated and pursued by the Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe. The initiative pools resources to fund world-class integrated European high-performance computing and data infrastructure and support an innovative supercomputing ecosystem. The continent’s
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SUPERCOMPUTERS Supercomputers, also called computational or parallel clusters process complex simulations by splitting compute problems into smaller jobs, simultaneously running on multiple server nodes, interconnected by one fast network. The price-performance of such systems is constantly improving, helping to make high performance computing more affordable.
An exascale system is one that can perform a quintillion floatingpoint operations per second
Nowadays a compute problem that would take weeks to process on a multi-million-euro system twenty years ago can be accomplished in just a few hours on a single server, equipped with compute GPUs. The hardware architecture with multiple computational GPUs used today in high performance computing space has many similarities with AI and ML implementations, and the intersection of the technologies is also bringing more advanced AI solutions to the mainstream, with high performance computing potentially enabling training models on ever larger datasets to optimise compute cluster use. From 2002 to 2009, supercomputing performance doubled almost every 12 months. However, this rate dropped to every 2.3 years from 2009 to 2019, which has been credited to several factors such as the slowdown in Moore’s Law and technical constraints such as Dennard scaling. supercomputing efforts is also bolstered by Horizon Europe, a seven-year European Union scientific research framework that is investing nearly €80 billion to fuel discoveries and world-firsts, including the development of EU-based exascale machines. Take the Hawk supercomputer, currently the 24th system in the Top 500 list of world’s fastest supercomputers, installed at the University of Stuttgart HLRS. This machine - an HPE Apollo 9000 system with 5,632 nodes spread across its 44 cabinets, each node carrying EPYC CPUs - delivers around 26 peak petaflops of performance. HLRS is enabling customers in the automotive segment to run structural analysis and fluid dynamic simulations. There’s also Lumi, a pre-exascale machine
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located at the IT Centre for Science CSC in Kajaani, Finland that demonstrates the power of this next era of supercomputing. Lumi, which utilises similar technology as Frontier with its custom EPYC Trento CPU and four Instinct MI250X GPU accelerators per node, will be capable of executing more than 375 petaflops or more than 375 million billion calculations per second, with a theoretical peak performance of more than 550 petaflops per second. What makes pre and exascale machines particularly interesting is a memory coherency. This technology, not yet available to the general market, means there is a single copy of data accessed by both the CPU and GPUs, without the need to keep separate copies for each. This, in turn, reduces overhead programming, improves performance, and frees up system resources, helping bleeding edge systems like Lumi to run more efficiently. Lumi also boasts innovative
free cooling technology, which enables waste heat to be utilised in the district heating network of Kajaani, further reducing costs, and CO2 footprint. This technology is anticipated to reduce the entire city’s annual carbon footprint by 13,500 tons – an amount that equals the output from 4,000 passenger cars. ë Thanks to this massive computational capacity, the machine – which already ranks amongst the world’s top supercomputers – is enabling European researchers to solve problems across different areas, from weather and cybersecurity through to drug discovery and personalised medicine. It is making breakthroughs in the area of climate change too; Lumi enables climate scientists to run highresolution climate models, which can provide better insights for climate impact studies. The continent now wants hardware that exceeds the performance of the world’s fastest Fugaku supercomputer in Japan. It is an ambitious and complex project and will take time, which is why the current democratisation of high-performance computing is so important. It would require continuous focus and investments from multiple European nations to develop home-grown hardware, tools and scalable software if Europe is serious about operating its own, exascale class systems.
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LOOKING GLASS
PREPARING FOR PASSWORDLESS AUTHENTICATION
Graphics courtesy Entrust, The end of WorldPassword Day.
Passwordless solutions use a number of technologies, such asbiometrics and smart credentials, to positively identify users andgrant access to applications without the need to input a password. Theyhave been identified by Gartner as an emerging technology likelyto make a major impact in 2022.By maximizing security while minimizing friction, passwordlessfits neatly into a zero-trust framework that emphasizes seamless,perimeter-less security
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Graphics courtesy Entrust, The end of WorldPassword Day.
LOOKING GLASS
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