THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: After Kochi and Malta, SmartCity Dubai is spreading wings to Lagos in Nigeria. SmartCity chief executive officer Jaber Bin Hafez, who is also the vice-chairman of SmartCity Kochi, signed the memorandum of understanding with Lagos State Attorney General and Commissioner of Justice Adeniji Kazeem in Dubai last week.
Reports said the SmartCity Lagos, to be developed on the lines of the Kochi project, is part of the provincial government's efforts to make it a hub of smart technologies like Internet of Things. The city was even selected by IBM’s Smarter cities challenge project aimed at improving civic facilities with the help of technologies, industry sources said.
Though the size of the upcoming SmartCity or its key focus areas were yet to be disclosed, they said Internet of Things could be a focus area. IT sector experts in the state said Lagos joining the SmartCity network would not affect the prospects of Kochi project. “It is entirely a different location and the promoters might have chosen the location for strategic reasons. We just need to be concerned of the speedy completion of SmartCity Kochi,” said Technopark founder chief executive officer G. Vijayaraghavan.
Lagos is the fourth to join the network of global knowledge industry clusters promoted by Dubai Holdings under the SmartCity brand after Dubai and Malta. The Kochi and Malta projects were announced almost during the same period, but the Malta project was quite ahead of Kochi.
The first phase comprising of 12,000 square metres was inaugurated in October 2010 and many leading firms as HP and CISCO have already opened shops there. The SmartCity Kochi is, however, bigger in size. The first-phase building opened in February this year has a built-up area of about 6.5 lakh square feet.
