In a significant step toward accelerating urban innovation, Smart City Research Centre at International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad (IIITH) and Kakinada Institute of Engineering and Technology (KIET) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on 17 June 2025 at the KIET Campus to support the Kakinada Smart City Mission. The collaboration aims to bring cutting-edge research, real-time urban solutions, and emerging technologies to the forefront by establishing a Smart City Living Lab at the KIET campus and extending the same to Kakinada Smart City.
The initiative, launched in the presence of the Kakinada District Collector Shri Sagili Shan Mohan and other dignitaries, marks a new chapter in bridging academia, government, and technology for smarter, more sustainable cities.
The lab will serve as a collaborative ecosystem to support the research, development, and deployment of smart city solutions, enabling students, researchers, and city stakeholders to tackle practical urban challenges. Mr. PV Viswam, Founder Chairman of Kakinada Institutes of Engineering and Technology, signed the MoU on behalf of the KIET institutes.
Key activities planned:
- Utilising the KIET campus as a testbed for deploying and validating real-world smart city technologies under the Smart City Living Lab initiative.
- Collaboratively identifying and executing impactful urban projects with tangible outcomes, in alignment with the Lab’s mission
- Facilitating knowledge sharing through workshops, expert-led sessions, and hands-on training programs.
- Providing student internships and research-based learning opportunities.
- Supporting the long-term vision of deploying smart technologies in the city of Kakinada.
Addressing the gathering, Ms. Anuradha Vattem, Chief Technology Architect at IIIT Hyderabad said,“We’re delighted to extend our Smart City Living Lab model to KIET. This collaboration enables academic institutions to become active co-creators of impactful, real-world solutions that address today’s urban challenges.”
During the meeting, the IIIT-H team showcased their ongoing work in areas such as crowd monitoring, Water Supply Distribution and Quality monitoring, Digital Twin solution for water network and a scalable City IoT operating Platform(ctOP). The Collector expressed appreciation for the team’s efforts and showed a particular interest in several solutions, especially crowd monitoring, suggesting that Proof of Concept (PoC) could be explored in the district soon.
“Receiving such positive attention from the District Collector is truly motivating,” said Ms. Anuradha Vattem. “The District Administration’s support is vital in taking research beyond the lab and into communities where it can create meaningful change.”
This meeting marks the beginning of a promising partnership between IIITH’s Smart City research centre, KIET and the local government to implement scalable smart city solutions in Kakinada.
