The International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad (IIITH), in India has set up the SCRC smart city research centre with support from Meity (government of India), Smart City Mission and the government of Telangana.

There is a huge push for smart cities in India under the Smart Cities Mission, an initiative by the Indian government to drive economic growth and improve the quality of life of people by enabling local development and harnessing technology to create smart outcomes for citizens.

In this ambitious project, 100 cities are being covered for the duration of five years with a budget of Rs100 crore per city per year. As a part of it, Living Lab plans to create an urban area enhancing the three value domains of social, economic and environmental.

IIITH existing centres will be lending their expertise to the SCRC in various domains covering signal processing, OneM2M server, design of smart and automated buildings, optics and photonics, flexible electronics, embedded systems and IoT, radio frequency integrated circuit and low-power VLSI design, and research and development in fundamental aspects of computing systems.

The IIITH’s Living Lab will collaborate with government bodies, start-ups and big organisations on smart cities. The IIITH campus will include different IoT verticals related to air quality, building energy, water quantity and quality, street lighting and so on. Through the Living Lab, the IIITH plans to transform the campus into a platform for learning and experimentation, and for showcasing new ideas and approaches.

“As technology goes mainstream and directly into homes, buildings, campuses and cities, it is imperative that access to such spaces should be available to ensure that the right products are defined, designed and built,” said Ramesh Loganathan, professor of practice at the IIITH. “Without live access to such spaces, products may end up being theoretical and not actually usable.”

The IIITH is an autonomous research university founded in 1998 that focuses on the core areas of information technology, such as computer science, electronics and communications, and their applications in other domains through inter-disciplinary research that has a greater social impact.