Cisco signs MoU with government of Telangana for digital transformation

Cisco has signed a memorandum of understanding with government of Telangana for digital transformation to boost education and local innovation, foster entrepreneurship, and accelerate economic competitiveness and citizen engagement in the state.

Cisco and the government of Telangana have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), which includes the Digital Zone smart city project in Hyderabad, establishing an Internet of Things (IoT) Innovation Hub and a Living Lab near Hi-Tech City in Hyderabad, Center of Excellence and Living Lab in T-Hub premises, the largest building in India to be entirely dedicated to entrepreneurship, and remote education in 10 schools in Karimnagar.

The MoU was signed in the presence of minister of IT E&C KT Rama Rao and Dinesh Malkani, president, Cisco India and SAARC.

As part of the Digital Zone project, Cisco will deploy City Digital Platform (CDP) in the 2.2 km area near Hi-Tech City in Hyderabad, including smart Wi-Fi, smart parking, smart lighting, traffic analytics at key junctions, remote expert for government services (REGS), smart environmental sensors, smart waste management, and smart control center to monitor and manage the city with greater efficiency and effectiveness.

In the Digital Zone project, Cisco will collaborate with local ecosystem solution providers to build a scalable model for the effective rollout of city services across the state of Telangana. Cisco will also engage with ecosystem partners in the state to develop new applications specifically for Indian smart cities and collaborate with the state for its upcoming smart cities in Telangana.

Cisco will set up a Centre of Excellence (CoE) and a Living Lab on the T-Hub premises to foster regional innovation, and will enable partners and startups to build solutions around IoT and cyber security and engage in rapid prototyping. This will also act as a platform to bring startups, accelerators, developers, researchers, ecosystem partners and the venture community together to showcase possibilities of the Internet of Things.

The Cisco CoE will be hosted in the IIIT campus in T-Hub, which is part of the state-of-the-art 70,000-square-foot building called Catalyst, the largest building in India to be entirely dedicated to entrepreneurship.

The vision of the state government of Telangana is to bring the best education to all the students across the state and bring in the best of faculty remotely to every school in the state. Toward that, the Government of Telangana will collaborate with Cisco to help deliver remote interactive education bringing in benefits of virtual expert learning.

Cisco will set up virtual video-based classrooms in 10 remote schools in Karimnagar district for inter-school learning. The solution will connect the district school to the remote schools for the sharing of faculty. Cisco will deploy the solution to connect these schools over HD-quality video conferencing to share the faculty across the connected schools. The solution will also enable digital sharing of content, live streaming, recording, creation of a repository and accessing the content on demand.

KT Rama Rao, said, “My vision for the state is to continue that rich legacy of making Hyderabad the most preferred IT destination in the world and expand it to the rest of Telangana. I envision digitally empowering every citizen of the state, enhancing quality of life of citizens, accelerating economic competitiveness, boosting local innovation and becoming a knowledge and technology hub of the country."

Dinesh Malkani, President, Cisco India and SAARC, said, "Digitization will be key to how cities, communities and countries maintain global competitiveness, increase GDP growth, foster innovation and create new jobs. The government’s vision to transform Telangana into a digital state is visionary and will create huge opportunities for the state, its citizens and the nation."