Vishal Mehra, Vice President & Director, iRam Technologies, in this interview with Juili Eklahare, talks about how it is time for us to leverage IoT, AI and other technological tools to build new smart cities.
Tell us a little bit about iRam Technologies. What was the reason
for starting this company?
There is a huge potential in the market regarding IoT-based products, which is why we came up with the idea of starting a company that can provide smart solutions for smart citizens now and in the future. iRam is a product development and technology company with the most advanced solutions based on IoT. The products and solutions from us are specially designed to make urban living more convenient, aligned with the government’s smart city initiative. The solutions are integrated with leading smart city command control platforms.
Where do you see the Internet of Things and its technologies creating the most impact in smart cities? How will the ‘Public Smart Parking’ for Bhubaneshwar, Kanpur & Nasik smart cities help smart cities to plan for new investments in parking spaces at required areas in the city?
A smart city is considered smart due to its inherent intelligence in dealing with its resources and environment by harnessing the potential of IoT and AI. As parking is a challenge that our cities are grappling with, we have developed IoT-enabled Smart Parking Solutions that are conducive to the Indian conditions.
Recently, we won smart parking projects for Bhubaneshwar, Kanpur & Nasik, wherein we will be installing our IoTbased smart parking technology, including parking gateways, parking management software, sensors, citizen application at 87 sites in Bhubaneshwar, 42 sites in Kanpur and 33 parking sites in Nasik, respectively. With this deployment, respective smart cities will be able to provide citizens convenience to find and reserve parking. iRam’s Smart Parking Solutions can be deployed in on-street, off-street and covered parking spaces.
What emerging technologies need to be deployed to help realise the smart city vision?
It is time for us to leverage IoT, AI and other technological tools to build new smart cities and transform the existing ones to unleash their true potential. Smart cities have started adopting various technologies like, IoT, etc, which make use of various components to create a connected network of devices across the city. The system of actuators and sensors play a key role and impact all levels of functioning in the city.
What are the significant shifts you see in IoT?
Today, IoT is quickly becoming mainstream. The reason for this is that IoT-enabled internet has created an extremely rich, heterogeneous array of business and consumer use cases. With the help of IoT, the internet has been transformed into real-time data that can be analysed to make business decisions and improve performance.
What is the road ahead for iRam Technologies?
As of now, we are working together with our partners and the government agencies for successful deployment of the current projects in hand. We are continuously developing new products and improving existing IoT products and solutions that can positively impact urban living. Besides, we are already working with another half a dozen upcoming smart cities and municipal corporations in India on various use cases and business models, which can be driven through our existing product line of smart parking, intelligent poles, smart street lighting and smart environment.
