Information is the chief catalyst

Barco India Managing Director Rajiv Bhalla says that as Indian consumers demand better services, service providers—whether public or private—will need to leverage advanced technological solutions to meet their growing requirements.

Can you share briefly what work you have done in the Smart City domain in India?

Barco provides networked visualisation solutions to smart cities across the world. Drawing on our proven track record as a leading provider of smart city solutions in the world, we have the technological proficiency as well as the expertise to support the building of a robust, efficient, and reliable interconnected infrastructure for Indian smart cities. We believe that good data gathering, monitoring, and planning are essential for optimizing urban operations and tackling the ever-increasing demand on the existing infrastructure in major cities. Smart, as well as safe cities, are the next stage of urban living. They are powered by technology and data, and function at the intersection of seamless interconnectivity with processes and people, leading to optimized processes and efficient workflows which promote greater productivity, livability, workability, and sustainability. Information is the chief catalyst that makes this elaborate arrangement work. This is where Barco steps into the picture as a technology partner.

We provide cutting-edge solutions that optimize data flow and information sharing between various stakeholders for all critical safe city applications. We have large control room-focused video walls and software solutions that can help in improving the performance of various departments such as traffic management, security, telecom, utilities, and process control systems. By facilitating real-time information sharing between different stakeholders, we allow individuals, businesses, and public enterprises to identify and respond to incidents in real-time.

Can you speak a bit about your control rooms and collaboration.

Barco is the global market leader in equipping, integrating and connecting control room video wall and collaboration solutions for any market and environment. We have the experience of hundreds of successful installations per year, of virtually any size. This allows us to assist our customers in identifying their needs, clarifying the requirements, and tailoring an ideal solution. The key to smart systems is information. The more data that is available, the better solutions can be created. However, an abundance of information can also be a challenge. If the information is available but you have no way of processing, it can work counterproductive. That is why data gathering, distribution and monitoring has become increasingly important.

The collected information needs to then be presented to the stakeholders in a smooth and clear way. This can be done using Barco’s wide range of video wall solutions that span every technology: LCD, LED rear projection, Laser rear-projection, and Direct View LED. Our products excel in reliability and image quality and have been used in thousands of control rooms around the world. New inventions, including RGB Laser rear-projection cubes and the bezel-less LCD video wall Barco UniSee, give us an important edge over the competition.

What’s more, the unique Barco OpSpace, the first operator workspace solution tailored to the operator, enables more efficient workflow. The operator is able to access information from many disparate secure networks in one environment, spanning multiple displays on his desk. In India, Barco Control Room solutions are used in several cities. As part of UP Dial 100 project, we have installed an advanced video wall with 180 rear-projection cubes in multiple configurations at their Lucknow centre to enable faster, more accurate tracking and resolution of complaints, crimes, and queries. We also have an installation of 28 video wall cubes at Andhra Pradesh Real-Time Governance (RTG) Centre which is typically used during critical events and disaster management/relief.

The Government of India is pushing for Smart Cities in India. How can a private-public collaboration move forward in that regard?

For Smart Cities in India, it will require several critical domains to be modernized and made technology-friendly. Seamless interconnectivity between multiple stakeholders will be vital to ensure smoother day-to-day operations and better query resolution. As Indian consumers demand better services, service providers – whether public or private – will need to leverage advanced technological solutions to meet their growing requirements. Information access will be pivotal here; data will have to be collated and combined from multiple sources and presented to everyone in the value chain to improve information visibility and decision-making.

The implementation of innovative strategies is greatly benefited through private-public cooperation because it helps the public sector overcome budget deficits and provides additional investment in the form of private-sector capital. This helps in maintaining a fund pipeline for necessary projects and accelerates economic development. The value of all aspects of the smart city chain, including planning, design, funding, implementation and delivery is enhanced through such a partnership. Additionally, the private sector comes with transformational approaches and also ensures greater efficiency, better cost and time management and budgetary certainty, leading to better outcomes. Hence, such partnerships enable harnessing some of the best technical and scientific brains in the country to build an infrastructure beneficial for everyone involved. However, while financing becomes easier with a public-private partnership, the 30% earmarked for private financing is not sufficient. A significant scale-up is required in both the number and size of public-private partnership projects, for them to mobilize target private investments.

Is India ready to adopt the Internet of Things (IoT) on a large scale and are we ready for Industry 4.0?

India is a developing economy and a very diverse market with several unique challenges. While we believe that IoT can be a game-changer across segments such as healthcare, resources industrial applications or tracking and more and such projects are moving towards the commercial development stage, it is not a large-scale adoption at this point of time. This is resulting in a fragmented market and we are experiencing hardships along the way. A major shift is required in the manner that stakeholders such as the Government of India, enterprises and start-ups look at IoT innovation, development and utilization. Additionally, we see the need for a platform operating at the centre of the IoT eco-system, connecting all these players.

Adoption is expected to be quite slow because of several basic problems and challenges that Indian consumers face. These problems can be identified as a lack of standardization, issues with data security, storage and ownership, return on investment, etc. However, the industry is still quite positive on the technology thanks to the penetration of internet and readiness towards the adoption of innovative methods.

Will the implementation of 5G in India help all of the above?

The imminent 5G connection is likely to support all emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and machine to machine communications. These will in turn aid a much larger range of applications and services such as driverless vehicles, telesurgery and real-time data analytics. It is likely that wireless technology will spread across the country thanks to the implementation of 5G and segments including health care, industrial, educational, commercial, financial and allied sectors. The technology will enable the implementation of a sensor-embedded network allowing real-time relay of information across fields such as manufacturing, consumer durables and agriculture.