The River of Data
Cities historically were planned alongside waterways–long and winding from mountains into towns. This dates back to the 17th century, when engineers and city planners developed centralized networks to deliver drinking water, food, and energy.
When I think of the structure of a modern city today, I think instead of the potential to link populations not only by waterways and highways, but also by the massive amounts of data ebbing and flowing through their lives. I also think of the fact that many cities around the world are swelling in population far before the infrastructure is in place to support the population, which results in them being crowded and often inefficient. All of this raises a couple of questions: What if we were to equip our cities with dynamic, networked, self-regulating systems that could take the complex interactions of everyday life into account? What if we deployed emerging technologies to create a nervous system for cities that could support wide-ranging needs of the population?
To answer questions like these, the MIT Media Lab is participating in an initiative called Kumbhathon, which is engaging with startups to develop technologies that could help to change the developing world. Some 30 million people attended the Kumbh Mela at Nashik in August and September 2015.
We are working toward investigating new models of cities that are connected across disentangled civic systems through the application of customized emerging technologies, thereby pushing forward the development of smart cities.
A group of us at the MIT Media Lab (members of the Camera Culture, Changing Places, Human Dynamics, Civic Media, Macro Connections and Scalable Cooperation labs) and others across the MIT community are creating a platform to bring together innovators, entrepreneurs, engineers, academia, government and corporations to build technologies that understand and respond to human activity, environmental conditions, and market dynamics.
We are interested in finding optimal combinations of automated systems, just-in-time information for personal control, and interfaces to persuade people to adopt sustainable behaviors. We want to leverage the Internet, smartphones, and the cloud to play a critical role to help cities with innovation. Through this work, we aim to develop better cities that use information technology to solve urban problems, and in doing so, impact the lives of millions and potentially billions.
In Nashik, India, we are creating a powerful platform for data to solve problems and be innovative. One of our partners is Sunil Khandbahale. To me, he is like Dr. Seuss’ fictional character, The Lorax, who saves trees! Sunil studied in a school where he didn’t speak English and was given a dictionary to translate; he found it to be such a useful tool that he created an SMS-based platform that 150 million people use to communicate today-hence the Lorax, because he saved millions of trees from being cut down to make dictionaries.
Nashik is not only filled with successful and aspiring entrepreneurs like Sunil, but it also is a very unique city for considering development problems at scale. Nashik is a satellite city of Mumbai (two and half hours from Mumbai), a ‘Tier 2 city’ with a population of 2 million, an emerging city–16th fastest growing according to the UN, and became a pop-up city in August of 2015 as a result of the Kumbh Mela.
During that period Nashik grew to be the most populous city on earth, as 30 million people converged for the epic Kumbh Mela a Hindu pilgrimage that is the world’s largest religious gathering and is held every third year at one of the four venues Haridwar, Allahabad (Prayag), Nashik, and Ujjain, by rotation. The pilgrimage is guided by a desire to be cleansed of one’s sins in the river. This ritual is known as taking a holy dip. The location of the holy dip is at Ramkund in Nashik. Despite the tremendous crowds, the young/old/weak visit without any hesitation.
At a time when Mr. Narendra Modi (Prime Minister of India) and the Indian government have laid out technology-driven plans like ‘Digital India’ and smart city program to the tune of 1.2 billion dollars, we are greatly excited by our plan to use Nashik as a sandbox for innovating new technology-based solutions. In fact, our experiment at Nashik is the beginning of a new wave of research to evaluate strategies that can facilitate the creation of smart cities.
Our efforts in Nashik began two years ago through the development of buildathons. During the buildathons, we worked with entrepreneurs of many different backgrounds from computer science to biology to business, to identify the major problems within the city and then jointly create solutions.
Through a selective and iterative process, the lab now has 12 promising products in development. At the end of January, we will be working with the projects and product teams to identify the technical, operational and business constraints that prevent them from launching by the Kumbh Mela. Additionally, we will be bringing in partners from multi-national corporations to act as mentors to share their insights around innovating at scale.
In a very competitive world, people have to continually re-invent themselves. A testament to this is the story of IBM, which started off as a manufacturer of time punch clocks, a very different company from what it is today. Over these past few months, my conversations with leaders of industry giants of the world such as 3D Systems, Clinton Health Access Initiative, Colgate, Godrej, Google, GSMA, GSK, ICICI, INK, Jabil, Jawbone, Khosla Lab, Megapolis India, Microsoft, Quantum, Sapat, TCS, TechMahindra, Unilever, VSP, Welspun, WIPRO, and Xerox have sparked many discussions: Unilever, for instance, shared how it had executed a successful campaign during the previous Kumbh Mela by stamping Indian bread with hygiene suggestions. GSMA was enthused by the opportunities of the Kumbh Mela and shared an idea about how the 10 million cell towers in the world could potentially be used to charge cell phones via radio waves. Moreover, companies such as XEROX and TCS were so excited that they decided to send their R&D teams to Kumbathon 4.
This has not just fueled my energy and enthusiasm, but has also backed my belief that this effort is a window for the visionaries of the world to shape the future together shape the future and think about innovative ways to bring value to the world. In fact, every project we have shortlisted could represent million-to billion-dollar opportunities when realized.
In closing, we are creating a platform that brings together stakeholders, innovators, and private corporations to build technologies that understand and respond to human activity and market dynamics. By evaluating the approach and the impact that these technologies have towards building a smart and better functioning city, the lessons will then be applied throughout the US and other rapidly growing cities during a scale-up phase of the project.
If you are planning to join us in Nashik in, here are a few places to visit:
Nandur Madhmeshwar migratory bird sanctuary
Sula Wines local winery and restaurant
Jawahar tribal art (warli paintings)
Chandon Moët Hennessy, champagne factory in Dindori
Pandav Lene — Buddhist caves in Nashik
Ajanta/Ellora — world heritage site, Buddhist caves (3 hour drive from Nashik)
Being an avid photographer, I wanted to share with you some pictures that I clicked during my visits to India that could give you a glimpse into its diverse culture and possibilities and get you excited for your visit.
A window into the daily lives of business owners and workers near the location of the Kumbh Mela in Nasik. How could we use data and technology to benefit them?
My Snaps during previous Kumbathons:
Article and Pictures by John Werner, Head of Innovation and New Ventures, Camera Culture Group, MIT Media Lab. This is John’s third trip to Nashik with the group.
