Iran’s Vice Presidential Office for Science and Technology has launched a tech initiative to expand the Iranian capital’s tech infrastructure and transform Tehran into a smart city.
The office has called on enthusiastic tech firms, startups and knowledge-based companies to submit their products and ideas to the office’s website until August 13, Isti.ir reported.
The National Elites Foundation and SmarTech accelerator company will help the vice presidential office judge and rank the best ideas and introduce them in a ceremony.
The winners will benefit from facilities like seed money, mentorship, technical support and legal consultation to commercialize their ideas.
According to the report, tech firms can submit plans and ideas on smart on-street parking, public transportation, travel planner, shared transportation, traffic and air pollution management, traffic data analysis, postal services for online retailers, smart freight transfer and digital traffic ticket payment.
The public call illustrates that the smart transportation topic also covers road safety and infrastructural development ideas.
Tech Infrastructure
In an earlier effort to promote Tehran’s technological infrastructure, Tehran Municipality’s head of Information and Communications Technology Organization, Mohammad Farjoud, signed a trilateral agreement with Mobile Telecommunications Company of Iran and internet service provider Mobinnet.
Based on the deal, MCI agreed to invest in the development of urban tech ecosystem and ICT infrastructures in Tehran, while Mobinnet will provide urban agencies and businesses with enhanced internet services.
Farjoud said since the Smart Tehran project was designed in 2018, TM started to tap the potentials of the private sector for upgrading urban tech services.
“With the expansion of IoT usage worldwide, Iran has also moved in the same direction, such that the footprint of new technologies can be seen in many urban services,” he added.
Besides expanding tech infrastructures in the capital city, the agreement envisages strengthening ties with the startup ecosystem and giving businesses free access to APIs, enabling them to promote their activities on internet-based services.
Application Programming Interface or API is a set of functions and procedures that allow the creation of applications that access the features or data of an operating system, application or another service.
Tech Transformation
Transforming the Iranian capital into a smart city has been a priority of TM, as it has focused on the application of smart solutions and the internet of things technology in urban management since past few years.
Projects entailing the application of smart technologies have been implemented in Iran, including the replacement of old electricity meters with smart ones to increase the precision of monitoring consumption. Smart power meters digitally send meter readings to energy suppliers via the internet to undertake more accurate billing.
Currently, TM and Tehran Traffic Police are using automated smart surveillance systems to identify old and dilapidated cars that are the main source of air pollution in the metropolis.
The installation of online air quality monitoring systems across the capital is one of the technologies used widely since past many years.
Smart parking meters have been installed and activated in many parts of Tehran to help drivers reserve roadside parking spots and pay online via a smartphone application.
TM's ICT organization ran a pilot project in Sorkheh Hesar National Park on the eastern flank of the capital in January 2019 to convert it into the country's first smart park.
The initiative envisaged equipping the park with smart security cameras, smart parking lots and a smart watering system which, unlike traditional irrigation controllers that operate on a preset schedule and timers, controls weather monitor, soil conditions, evaporation and plant water use to automatically adjust the watering schedule to site conditions.
TM has welcomed collaboration with companies and individuals whose products and services can help alleviate problems such as air pollution and traffic congestion.
Smart Tehran Congress
Tehran’s tech authorities have been holding annual events dubbed Smart City Congress since December 2019, gathering domestic tech teams, startups and knowledge-based companies to present their achievements and ideas in the field.
The event has been to identify and implement innovative ideas and projects related to the smart city concept.
Mainly organized by TM's ICT Organization and Tehran-based universities, the congress intends to bring together academicians, researchers, entrepreneurs and representatives of knowledge-based firms to help Tehran become a smart city.
At the gathering, special panels address the need for modern management of urban affairs via location-based approaches, smart transportation, environment protection and extension of urban services via artificial intelligence to promote the quality of life indices by tapping into modern technologies.
The annual event explores open and big data, ways of raising public awareness of the latest technological developments in urban services, productivity of urban management and data-based sustainable economy, while supporting tech teams and startups operating in the field.
Innovation contests, training workshops, tech-oriented meetings, public gatherings and a small-scale exhibition of smart products developed by startups and knowledge-based companies have been among the other TM plans in line with the realization of a smart city.
Municipalities believe the use of smart solutions and the internet of things technology can help resolve chronic problems facing metropolises for decades, particularly air pollution and traffic congestion, to make life more convenient for people.
