Telangana government, Cisco ink pact for tech initiatives

New Delhi:  The government of Telangana and Cisco on Thursday signed an agreement to cooperate on a host of initiatives, including Smart Cities, Internet of Things, cybersecurity, education and digitisation of monuments.

Cisco will set up a Centre of Excellence (CoE) at the T-Hub premises, the largest building in India to be entirely dedicated to entrepreneurship.

"Our expectation is that a lot of companies that are in the startup space and a lot of others that are here, can come and co-innovate with us," Dinesh Malkani, President, Cisco India and Saarc, told ET.

The concept, he said, is to let startups and existing companies bring any idea, use Cisco's facilities and technology, and create a product.

"The next step will be mentoring them, helping them to scale up and make the product more mature and get our engineering team involved," said Malkani.

As part of the smart city project, called the Digital Zone project, Cisco will take up a 2.2 km area near Hi-Tech City in Hyderabad, and convert it into a smart city.

Among the things it will do are smart lighting, smart parking, traffic analytics at key junctions, Remote Expert for Government Services (REGS), smart environmental sensors, smart waste management, and a smart control centre to monitor and manage the city with greater efficiency and effectiveness.

It will also provide remote education in 10 schools in Karimnagar, and help digitise the historical monument of Hyderabad, the Qutub Shahi tombs, near the Golconda Fort.

The memorandum of understanding between Cisco and the Telangana government was part of the larger IT sectoral policy launch in the State on Thursday.

"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," said KT Rama Rao, the Telangana minister of IT, electronics and communications.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.