Smarter Planet [or] Simpler ?

Today is an important day – Monday, the 7th of December 2009. The leaders of the world are meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark to discuss the future of the world… AND, THE NATURE IS WATCHING

Coincidently, i attended a workshop where they slightly touched upon the IBM’s Smarter Planet initiative. This initiative covers multiple facets of our day to day life starting from the “generation of energy” to the “loss of it in the not-so-disciplined traffic jams” all over the world.

Two points created some curiosity!

1. There was a statistics that a single carrot travel on an average of 1600 miles before it reaches a consumer in the United States. The number is pretty daunting, isn’t it? The leaders of the world are wearing their “Six Hats” to reduce this travel time by implementing a smarter Supply Chain Management process in the form of smart chips, cameras and “what not” on earth… is there a much more smarter solution than this? - a SIMPLE solution called “Localization”

In the perception of a “Chennaivasi” this gets translated like this: why should a Kentucky Fried Chicken or a McDonalds McChicken travel 1600 miles from the west to a small outlet in IT corridor, when there are large number of “Chettinadu Chickens” already available in every nook and corner of Chennai?

First, you bring the junk food, then you think about obesity that it causes, then you work on reducing the junk food habits from the youngsters and while in the process, increase the cost of the already junkies in the name of making it smarter!

2. There was another trivia that Mohenjodaro and Harappa were considered to be the “best planned cities” of ancient India. They had their social setup in a much better way than it can be now!

“BINGO” – well said! leaving the time of the history that we compare the cities, the irony is the planning that went in the design of water resources, sewage system, transport etc., – will it ever occur to our administrators? This will be too much of complaints, but that is the truth in the eyes of a stupid common man like me.

In the earlier days, Civilization flourished near the banks of rivers. In the present days, at least in Chennai, there are no good water source [btw, i did not refer to tasmac] and i doubt if what that is flourishing can be categorized under “civilization”.

We have to settle somewhere, isn’t it? There are two options left for us [atleast for the software engineers like me]. Either you pick a place near the work  or settle in a place where there is a good school. Have it assured that you will never find a common place where there is a good school near the work. Oh Boy..! you start traveling by cycle, motor-cycle, auto, bus, car and then the road traffic builds up … now, what to do next? Think about building a SMARTER PLANET by making a SMARTER TRAFFIC.

Simple Option - Stay close to work and develop each locality into a good school zone. When Government is providing all the facilities to build a office space for 20K employees, bring a mandate that a satellite city should also be formed in the same locality with all the basic necessities covered, including schools and hospitals, for the benefit of the people working in those offices.

Oh! Boy, Does this occur to everyone out there or just me?

Heal the world

Make it a better place

For you and me and our children…

Regards,

bright