ISLAMABAD ( WEB NEWS )
President Dr. Arif Alvi has asked for transforming the existing cities into smart cities to improve the governance as well as well-being of the people. He underscored that it was essential to utilize artificial intelligence and other related technologies to introduce data driven algorithms into governance, education, energy, industry, infrastructure, healthcare, mobility and other aspects that directly contributed to improve the lives of the citizens. He made these remarks while chairing a meeting on Smart Cities Programme, at Aiwan-e-Sadr, today. The meeting was attended by Minister for Science & Technology, Chaudhary Fawad Hussain, Secretary Science & Technology, Mr. Arshad Mehmood, Chairman, HEC, Dr. Tariq Banuri and other IT experts from NUST & COMSATS While addressing the meeting, the President said that the digital revolution was offering an unprecedented window of opportunity to improve the lives of millions of urban residents and deliver more efficient, sustainable and inclusive urban services to the citizens. He emphasized the need to deploy smart technologies in all cities of Pakistan ensuring safety, security and overall better quality of life for all citizens. The Ministry of Science & Technology gave a detailed presentation about the concept and importance of smart cities. The Ministry highlighted the advantages of Smart Cities Technologies that provided smart solutions to governance, healthcare, infrastructure, crime control, transportation, waste management, cyber security and mobility. The Ministry informed that a team of experts had been constituted to lead the smart cities initiatives. The meeting was briefed about the key products of National Centres which had been established by Higher Education Commission to focus on research and development in the specialized domains. The products prepared by the National Centres would greatly help in efficiently managing transport, detecting crimes and investigating cyber crimes.It was also apprised that the Government of Nigeria had lauded the efforts of National Radio Telecommunication Corporation (NRTC) for providing state-of-the-art counter-terrorism equipments.