The goal calls for making cities to be “inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable” in order to look ‘smart’.
“It’ll be good to do this in a formal framework like MoU and I hope we’ll be able to pursue that,” Swedish Ambassador Johan Frisell told bdnews24.com.
He noted that a number of Swedish private companies were already working with the Bangladesh government at different levels in this regard.
The Ambassador was speaking to bdnews24.com on the sidelines of a seminar in Dhaka on Monday.
The Swedish embassy hosted the seminar on ‘smart city’ with local government minister Khandker Mosharraf Hossain as the chief guest.
In his remarks, the minister said the government would like “to see Sweden as our partner in achieving this goal (11)”.
Sweden is known for its smart-city building model known as 'Symbiocities'.
The Ambassador said such cities would have solutions to such 21st century challenges as reducing energy dependency, getting clean air, lessening traffic congestion, ensuring transportation for all, security, safety, and surveillance system.
“There are solutions for each individual problem, but then (in a smart city) you have to connect it,” he said.“For
example, you produce energy from waste and then use it for bus
services. Smart city is doing smart things and connecting them”.
He said Sweden had developed this smart city idea in the last 20 to 25 years. “We have lots of experience at the government level. We have a lot of Swedish companies which have solutions and products”.
Representatives of several Swedish companies related to waste management, transport, power, IT, traffic control and surveillance participated at the seminar. The firms are ABB, Axis Communications Pte Ltd, Ericsson Bangladesh Limited, Hifab, Scania, Sensys Gatso and Volvo.
Dhaka North City Mayor Annisul Haq sought their technological support so that he could fulfil his pre-election commitment to make Dhaka a smart city.
“We are in the process of making a smart city,” he said.
Dhaka is currently considered one of the worst cities in the world to live in with its myriad problems ranging from notorious traffic congestion to water logging during rainy season.
But the Ambassador believed that it was “possible” to turn Dhaka into a
“smart city”. “I think (this is) even necessary,” he said.Mikael
Kyander, director exports of the carmaker SCANIA, told bdnews24.com
that Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) would be the “most cost and time efficient”
solution to Dhaka’s transport problem.
“We have the BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) system operating in South Africa and South America,” he said. This Swedish carmaker offers such solutions apart from selling buses, trucks.
“We would very much like to meet your authorities and convey what we can offer. We see huge potentials in Bangladesh for business,” he said.
Johan de Villiers, Managing Director for South-East Asia of the ABB, told bdnews24.com that his firm had all the technologies to support Bangladesh build smart cities in terms of energy efficiency.
The ABB is a global leader in power and automation technologies.
Villiers said different countries would need different things to build a smart city.
“It depends a lot on the phase of the country’s development,” he told bdnews24.com, “For Dhaka a lot of basic infrastructure is needed”.
Syed Afsor H Uddin, CEO of Public Private Partnership (PPP) Authority, promised to address investment bottlenecks, if any, in Bangladesh.
“It’ll be good to do this in a formal framework like MoU and I hope we’ll be able to pursue that,” Swedish Ambassador Johan Frisell told bdnews24.com.
He noted that a number of Swedish private companies were already working with the Bangladesh government at different levels in this regard.
The Ambassador was speaking to bdnews24.com on the sidelines of a seminar in Dhaka on Monday.
The Swedish embassy hosted the seminar on ‘smart city’ with local government minister Khandker Mosharraf Hossain as the chief guest.
In his remarks, the minister said the government would like “to see Sweden as our partner in achieving this goal (11)”.
Sweden is known for its smart-city building model known as 'Symbiocities'.
The Ambassador said such cities would have solutions to such 21st century challenges as reducing energy dependency, getting clean air, lessening traffic congestion, ensuring transportation for all, security, safety, and surveillance system.
He said Sweden had developed this smart city idea in the last 20 to 25 years. “We have lots of experience at the government level. We have a lot of Swedish companies which have solutions and products”.
Representatives of several Swedish companies related to waste management, transport, power, IT, traffic control and surveillance participated at the seminar. The firms are ABB, Axis Communications Pte Ltd, Ericsson Bangladesh Limited, Hifab, Scania, Sensys Gatso and Volvo.
Dhaka North City Mayor Annisul Haq sought their technological support so that he could fulfil his pre-election commitment to make Dhaka a smart city.
“We are in the process of making a smart city,” he said.
Dhaka is currently considered one of the worst cities in the world to live in with its myriad problems ranging from notorious traffic congestion to water logging during rainy season.
“We have the BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) system operating in South Africa and South America,” he said. This Swedish carmaker offers such solutions apart from selling buses, trucks.
“We would very much like to meet your authorities and convey what we can offer. We see huge potentials in Bangladesh for business,” he said.
Johan de Villiers, Managing Director for South-East Asia of the ABB, told bdnews24.com that his firm had all the technologies to support Bangladesh build smart cities in terms of energy efficiency.
The ABB is a global leader in power and automation technologies.
Villiers said different countries would need different things to build a smart city.
“It depends a lot on the phase of the country’s development,” he told bdnews24.com, “For Dhaka a lot of basic infrastructure is needed”.
Syed Afsor H Uddin, CEO of Public Private Partnership (PPP) Authority, promised to address investment bottlenecks, if any, in Bangladesh.
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