With its latest Indeed Smart City solution, dentsu India aims to help government bodies in reinventing India’s cities

• Dentsu India’s Indeed Smart City project aims to provide smart technological solutions to government bodies and private entities.
• Two of dentsu India’s projects are already up and running.
• We catch up with Ajay Singh as the Vice President of Smart City, dentsu India and Haresh Nayak, COO, dentsu international, Media Brands to find out all about it.

India has enjoyed a robust economic expansion in recent years, with Tier I and Tier II cities at the heart of this growth. Dentsu India announced the launch of its CSR ‘Indeed Smart City’ in India under its CSR advisory and implementation arm, Indeed, on July 06. With dentsu India’s latest CSR initiative, the agency network aims to improve the quality of life for the region’s citizens and consumers, manage cities’ growth sustainably, and maintain their global competitiveness.

After conducting thorough research for more than five years, Indeed Smart City will deliver solutions across domains such as Smart Infrastructure under the ABD (Area Based Development) initiative of the Smart City mission as well as smart healthcare, safety, citizen engagement, education and smart energy solutions. Additionally, Indeed Smart City will also focus on ICT (Information & Communications Technology) from ICCC (Integrated Command and Control Centres) to safety and surveillance, Video Analytics, CCP (City Collaboration Platforms), Smart Poles, city wi-fi solutions and more.

The agency network appointed Ajay Singh as the Vice President of Smart City, dentsu India to spearhead the Indeed Smart City initiative in April 2021.

Telling us more about what Indeed Smart City entails, Ajay Singh said, “We are going to provide endless opportunities to use data and technology and provide a more connected environment, to help make more efficient decisions and use it for the benefit of citizens, livelihood, ultimately increasing the livability index. It will basically act as a Master System Integrator with consulting, implementation and technology services. It is going to serve all governments including central and state and private entities.”

Explaining how the network would go about it, Haresh Nayak, COO, dentsu international, Media Brands added, “Apart from the aesthetics, our endeavor is also to provide intelligence, smartness and comfort to the citizens. So, the entire initiative is to straddle across various sectors -- right from infrastructure, power, water, waste management, traffic management to citizen empowerment. So, we want to cover a lot of initiatives or programs under various baskets of smart city and ensure that we are able to contribute not only to the city itself, but also collaborate with government bodies, as well as help citizens of the country.”

The research process for Indeed Smart City began in 2016 and two of their projects are already in motion.

Nayak shared, “There are two initiatives or projects which are already up and running. One is in the smart healthcare sector where we are creating a smart kiosk or a smart billboard of sorts, which spreads a certain type of chemical to kill malaria or dengue-spreading mosquitoes. That project is in the pipeline. The other project is to create smart infrastructure where per city, we are trying to create an integrated crisis center where everything is linked. The room will link up the water supply line, electricity line, hospitals, police station, etc. So, we are trying to create various infrastructures so that everything can be synced in and operate at a very optimal level to bring a lot of intelligence and help to the cities to manage crises and to create an efficient ecosystem for all citizens.”

As government bodies and businesses are more willing to invest in experimental models, dentsu India aims to help them exploit new technologies, business models, and urban planning design through their data intelligence and consultation services.

Nayak and Singh further told us about the network’s larger mission behind Indeed Smart City project, how it can benefit the OOH industry, projects in the pipeline and much more.

Catch the conversation here: