HPE, PwC to set up CoE in Kolkata to advance future cities project

BENGALURU: Hewlett Packard Enterprise has expanded its collaboration with its long-time strategic partner PwC to jointly create a Center of Excellence (CoE) in Kolkata, India, to advance development of future cities. Together, HPE and PwC are capitalizing on the Internet of Things (IoT) landscape to create opportunities for city administrators to optimize their assets and provide citizen-centric services.

Recognizing the need for effective connection and exchange of information across a diverse range of devices and applications, PwC will leverage the HPE Universal IoT (UIoT) Platform in its CoE to support development, testing and management initiatives around future cities.

The HPE UIoT Platform will allow PwC to start small and scale the business as demand increases. The CoE will utilize UIoT platform features, including lightweight machine to machine (M2M) support, expanded device management and increased Long Range (LoRa) support. Together, HPE and PwC will enable IoT applications to provide advanced analytics and machine learning innovations.

“HPE and PwC are working together to offer enhanced services, greater security and improved civic engagement to municipalities around the world, intended to deliver best in class experience to common citizens.” said Som Satsangi, VP & GM, Enterprise Group and MD India, HPE. “By combining HPE technology solutions and services with PwC business strategy, process, people and change capabilities, we are able to help organizations accelerate business and societal transformations, and derive greater value faster from their IoT initiatives and the Center of Excellence in Kolkata is a testament of our joint efforts.”

PwC’s applications and dashboard will be integrated with the HPE UIoT Platform to drive scale, security and speed for the new CoE. Initial use cases that are in development in the CoE span the environment, transportation systems and waste management, and will enable:

• Pollution reduction : Smart poles deployed throughout the city will serve as aggregation points for sensors, cameras and digital display boards collecting environmental data. The environment data the smart devices collect across the city will be used to identify areas subject to heavy pollution.
• Urban mobility : IoT devices will be used to collect traffic data and model traffic condition to further modify the timing cycle for signals based on traffic flow. The collected traffic data will then be integrated with GPS data from the transit management system to provide accurate estimated times of arrival (ETAs) for public buses. Also, sensors will be placed in parking lots to enable real-time tracking of available spots.
• Intelligent waste management : Sensors will be used to track the amount of trash held in garbage bins, helping waste management companies determine where garbage must be collected. Also, the garbage collection vehicles will be equipped with GPS devices and RFID readers to ensure the vehicle takes the best route to full trash bins.

Data gathered from IoT devices and cameras deployed across the city will be used to facilitate preemptive governance and improve city operations and emergency response. HPE and PwC are also expanding use cases to other industry verticals including manufacturing and infrastructure.

“Through this project, we are taking our partnership with HPE to the next-level,” said Raman Kalra, Partner, Technology Consulting, PwC India. “The burgeoning impact of IoT is going beyond the enterprise and now has large societal implications. Bringing together our industry consulting and technology teams with HPE, we are working on solutions which will bring significant productivity gains to the organizations and societies at large.”