The ‘Pink City” of Jaipur will be embracing technology to solve many of its civic problems and infrastructure needs.

It is planning to set up its own innovation lab, which the Jaipur Development Authority (JDA) said will focus on Smart City solutions in collaboration with tech players and start-ups.

Shikhar Agrawal, Joint Development Commissioner of JDA, said the space and technology infrastructure for the innovation lab will be provided by the JDA, which will invite startups and other companies to collaborate for locally relevant solutions.

“Innovation labs will be a tremendous platform for startups which can come and build their solutions here without any CAPEX investment,” he was reported as saying. “It could be a mobile app for garbage management or an Internet of things solutions for surveillance. If we find the solution relevant and scalable, we shall adopt it,” Agrawal said.

The innovation labs will come up under a master MoU with networking giant Cisco. The other companies involved are Qualcomm and GE. The labs are going to be operational within the JDA campus and will start with 25-30 seats. “Basically the tech infrastructure and space will be ours and the expertise will be bought in by our partners and the startups,” Agrawal said.

The initial focus will be on solutions that are mobile-centric. “We are looking at an app on the lines of cabdekho.com. Basically we are open to considering everything that can make the citizens’ lives simpler- from a waste management solution to a bill payment one.”

Rajasthan already has a platform called Startup Oasis which was conceptualised and set up by Rajasthan State Industrial Development and Investment Corporation Limited (RIICO) in association with IIM Ahmedabad.

Jaipur is one of the few cities that have started tech initiatives as a part of moving towards being a Smart City. It is primarily collaborating with Cisco for its Smart City solutions like surveillance, smart kiosks, analytics, networking, smart lights etc.