The Netherlands and India: Partners for High Tech & IT and Smart Cities
The Netherlands Trade Mission to India 2018 unfurled from 22nd May to 25th May. With over 200 participants, 140 companies/knowledge institutions, 4 cabinet ministers, and Prime Minister Mark Rutte, this was the biggest ever Dutch Trade Mission to India and almost twice the size of previous flagship-mission in 2015.
During the course of the trade mission, Indian and Dutch companies brainstormed, discussed and shared ideas about collaborations in the below-mentioned sectors:
Agribusiness & Horticulture
Life Sciences & Healthcare
Water Management, Logistics & Maritime
High tech & IT and Smart Cities
Startups
Sustainable Business
High tech & IT
The Netherlands and India welcomed the deepening of cooperation on cyber-security through the signing of an MoU between The Hague Security Delta and Hyderabad Security Cluster.
The Indian tech giant HCL announced the establishment of a Center of Excellence on Cyber Security in The Hague in the presence of Prime Minister Mark Rutte and the Mayor of The Hague Pauline Krikke. With approximately 120,000 employees, HCL is one of the larger players in the field of cyber security. Their European headquarters are already in The Hague.
The acquisition is a joint effort and success of the close collaboration between Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency (NFIA), The Hague Business Agency, InnovationQuarter (IQ), City of The Hague and HSD Office. The initial dialogue about setting up a Centre of Excellence on Cyber Security took place when HCL invited a small delegation led by HSD to talk about trends in cyber security, half a year ago. It was during this meeting when The Hague was mentioned as logical place to set up such a centre, because of amongst others the presence of HSD.
Pauline Krikke, Mayor of The Hague:
"The Centre of Excellence underlines the position of The Hague as one of the leading (cyber) security clusters in Europe. In India I have noticed that there is a lot of interest in what we are doing in the Hague in the area of cyber security. In addition, The Hague is an attractive partner and location for the Indian IT sector because of its positioning as the international city of peace and justice, as a government city and as a city with many knowledge institutions and international organisations. It is good to see how the cooperation that was started a few years ago already leads to new initiatives and good results."
Letter of Intent
In addition to the announcement of the expertise center for cyber security, Mayor Krikke -in the presence of Prime Minister Rutte- signed a Letter of Intent to investigate with HCL the conditions for setting up a broader Innovation Center of Excellence. This second centre focuses on solving societal issues of cities in areas such as security, mobility and the use of public space through digital innovation, IT and the use of data.
Programme of Cooperation Hyderabad Security Cluster and HSD
During the trade mission a ‘programme of cooperation’ (PoC) between Hyderabad Security Foundation (HSF) and The Hague Security Delta (HSD) was formally signed by IT secretary Jayesh Ranjan and Joris den Bruinen, deputy director HSD, in the presence of the Mayor of The Hague Pauline Krikke and the Mayor of Hyderabad Bonthu Rammohan. The signing took place during a key stakeholder meeting with an eight-member delegation from The Netherlands comprising Mayor of Hague, officials from HSD and Dutch companies working in the field of cyber security.
Jayesh Ranjan, Secretary of Information Technology, Government of Telangana:
“With the POC in place, we will begin developing capacity building programmess with The Hague summer school, beginning next month, and work on formulating legal framework to deal with cyber crime, by NALSAR with inputs from Dutch companies. We also agreed on collaborating on product development, training and capacity building.”
During the key stakeholder meeting, the Commissioner of Police, Anjani Kumar said Hyderabad police was keen on collaborating to gather inputs from HSD for capacity building, use of cyber forensics like face recognition, neighbourhood surveillance and traffic management. The Mayor of The Hague, Pauline Krikke extended an invitation to the 22 founding fathers, IT secretary and the police commissioner to visit HSD during the Cyber Security Week in October.
Softlanding & Cyber Security Summer School India
In the presence of Mayor Krikke, an agreement was signed with the Indian states of Karnataka (Bangalore) and Telangana (Hyderabad). The agreement states that i.o. The Hague will help Indian start-ups with exploring the European market as part of an 'India - NL Softlanding Programme'. On the other hand, Indian organisations will support Dutch companies in India. The Softlanding Programme is an agreement with the Centre of Excellence of the Indian state of Karnataka.
It was also agreed that IT students from both Indian states will follow a Summer School on cyber security in The Hague this summer. The intention is to bring a number of Indian students to The Hague every year. The municipality of The Hague and partners in India will therefore work even more closely in the further development of cyber security.
Saskia Bruines, Deputy Mayor of The Hague:
"Hyderabad (11 million inhabitants) was looking for inspiration in many places in the world in order to realise their ambitions. In the end, The Hague served as a model for cooperation between governments, businesses and knowledge institutions within The Hague Security Delta (HSD), leading to the establishment of their own Hyderabad Security Cluster (HSC). Something to be proud of as The Hague and the Netherlands."
Any other questions? Email: nde-ea@minbuza.nl
Because pictures say more than a thousand words, here is a visual recap of the some of the events that took place in the sectors High tech and IT:
Smart Cities
"We have something to offer, and there are other who might benefit from it. And still we can learn from what the others are doing. So it is a two way street, particularly on Smart Cities here in India, with the ambitions of Prime Minister Modi", Prime Minister Mark Rutte.
Institute of Future Living (IFL).
IFL along with the Dutch Embassy in India has been working with multiple stakeholders in India to gain valuable knowledge of local conditions and identify concrete opportunities for Dutch companies. IFL and the Global Smart Cities Community Council have been actively involved in understanding the contextual nuances of Indian market and evolving a collaboration framework that can help enhance Indo-Dutch cooperation at government level as well as support Dutch companies in their venture into the Indian market for Smart Cities by opening up some viable entry points.
Knowledge Collaboration with World Bank
IFL has been in discussion with the World Bank to promote knowledge-sharing on Smart Cities solutions and best practices. Based on these discussions, the Digital Development Team of the World Bank and IFL have signed a MoU for knowledge partnership to build the repository of global good practices, new ideas and innovative solutions for sustainable smart cities. Under this partnership, IFL (along with the Netherlands Embassy) and the World Bank had jointly organized a workshop on ‘Indo-Dutch Smart City Leaders’ in India during the visit of honourable Prime Minister in May 2018.
During this meeting the IFL / Dutch delegation had an exclusive meeting with the Digital Development Global Practice Team of the World Bank to take this partnership forward and evolve concrete framework for collaboration. The following points emerged out of these discussions:
- There is a ‘real opportunity’ for the Netherlands to take the first mover advantage building on existing relationships in India by leveraging established networks and access to stakeholders,
- There is an urgent need to partner with Indian companies with a local set-up and network that can act as the facilitators, source of market intelligence and help initiate /follow up on discussions with Indian smart city practitioners at central, state and city level,
- Mapping the needs of the 100 cities according to ‘where-they-are’, identify their requirements, offer suitable digital solutions / competencies that match needs (including advisory or technology services),
- Ensuring the economic sustainability and the ‘life cycle cost’ of the smart solutions, technical services or technology solutions etc. given the increased emphasis on the quality and economic viability of solutions,
- Undertaking multiple pilots / POCs or demonstration projects in select cities with the participation of Dutch companies that can be scaled up or replicated,
- Need to enter the Smart City market with a long-term commitment to transition from dialogue stage to deliverables stage – short term approaches will not realize any benefits,
- Need to partner with prominent knowledge players like the World Bank, UN agencies and other policy and capacity building organizations to support knowledge exchange programs, disseminate Dutch best practices and support study tours for smart city teams,
Way Forward – Knowledge Collaboration
Institute of Future of Living (IFL) is keen to promote Dutch good practices and innovative solutions through knowledge collaboration across the globe. IFL is therefore proposing the following two stage approach to be undertaken in association with the World Bank and other UN agencies as a long-term commitment to urban transformation agenda through knowledge-sharing and establishing a trans-national technology transfer framework. In the first stage, the collaboration framework will be tested in India with support for India’s 100 Smart City Mission. In the next stage the collaboration will be scaled up to global level.
The proposed initiative is also aimed at supporting the EU’s Smart City initiative and making Netherlands a ‘gateway for best practices from all the EU countries’ for implementation of proven and state of the art solutions in ‘global smart cities marketplace’, thus enhancing overall trade prospects of EU countries.
Read more on the full story of the World Bank and Dutch Knowledge collaboration for Smart Cities in the attachment below.
Here are the aftermovies of both days of the Trade Mission to India, for Smart Cities:
Day 2 - Smartcity Update
Want to learn more on how the embassy can assist you with your questions on Smart Cities? Email: nde-ea@minbuza.nl
