Two day Ideas Camp on Smart Cities from October 6

Mayors and Municipal Commissioners of 98 Mission Cities to participate

A two day Ideas Camp on various aspects of smart city development is being organized in New Delhi from October 6 to enable effective participation of the 98 cities included in the Smart City Mission in the second stage of City Challenge competition. This camp is being organized by Bloomberg Philanthropies, which is the knowledge partner of the Ministry of Urban Development for Smart City Mission.

Being held as a hand holding exercise, the Ideas Camp enables a detailed discussion facilitating clarity of thought and action regarding :

-How to set goals for a city?

-Cities for Citizens: Process of citizen engagement

-Understanding area based development

-Pan-city Sectors: Exploring smart city solutions

-Financing smart city projects

-Road safety, Using technology, Using MYGOV.In for citizen engagement etc.

The Ideas Camp is being organized at a time when the cities included in the Smart City Mission are set to begin preparation of city wise Smart City Plans which will be evaluated in the second stage of City Challenge competition based on a broad set of criteria for identifying the top ranking first 20 cities for financing during the current financial year. Others will be required to address the deficiencies identified before participating in the subsequent 2nd and 3rd rounds of competition wherein 40 cities will be selected for financing each year.

Anthony Williams, former Mayor of Washington, Stephen Yarwood, former Lord Mayor of Adelaide, Australia, Brenton Caffin, Director of Innovation Skills, Nesta, Phillip Rode, Executive Director, LSE Cities, Adam Freed, Principal, Bloomberg Associates, Raghu Kesavan of World Bank, Sanjeev Sanyal, Global Strtegist, Deutsche Bank, Deepti Jain of IIT, Delhi, Rose Gill Hearn, former Commissioner of New York City’s Department of Investigation besides other experts will participate in the discussions.

Mayors and Municipal Commissioners of all the 98 cities included in the Smart City Mission besides Principal Secretaries of Urban Development from States/UTs will also participate in the Ideas Camp. Most of the Mission Cities have so far selected consultants for preparation of city-wise Smart City Plans.