About the event

Smart City is not afraid of Siberian Cold

On November 28th, ComNews Information Group (IG) held the penultimate event in the series of business forums entitled “Smart City & Region: Digital Technologies On The Way To Smart Country”, organized throughout the year 2019 by ComNews in 7 different regions of Russia.

The forum in Novosibirsk gathered 130 high-profile officials from the legislative and executive government bodies of regions and cities comprising the Siberian Federal District, government institutes, federal telecommunication operators, IT companies, power distribution companies and other utilities, suppliers of ICT solutions, system integrators and developers of digital services.

PJSC Rostelecom was General Partner of the forum, PJSC MegaFon was Strategic Partner, and AT Consulting Vostok was Expert Partner. TransTeleCom, LANIT Integration, White Soft, Arrow Electronics, AT Consulting Vostok and WAVIoT were Sponsors of Practical Session. The forum was also supported by ICBCom and Data East.

The business forum was endorsed by the IT Directors Club in Novosibirsk, Business Incubator of Novosibirsk region, the Prototyping Center, the Business Support Center and the Export Support Center of the Novosibirsk Region; Innopolis special economic zone, international portal “HELPINVER – Discover the New Russia!”; the IoT Association, the National Association of House Communications and Information Networks; the IT Directors Club in the Central Federal District; and International Academy of Communications.

The plenary session of the business forum was dedicated to conceptual development and scaling of successful Smart City models. The forum was kicked off by Alexander Lulko, Head of Department of Industry, Innovations and Entrepreneurship of Novosibirsk City Administration, who offered the gathering a progress report on the implementation of the Smart City roadmap in Novosibirsk. The theme of digital services for modern cities was picked up by Alexander Bakirov, Projects Manager of Siberia Macro-regional Branch, PJSC Rostelecom. The last speaker of the plenary session was Evgeniy Ivanov, MegaFon’s Digital Projects Director in the Urals and Siberia, who entitled his presentation “Digital regions, smart cities and MegaFon’s digital eco-system.”

The conversation around the concept of Smart City continued at the plenary discussion. Panelists included: Sergey Novikov, Minister of Construction and Housing and Utility Infrastructure of the Republic of Khakassia; Natalia Novoselova, Deputy Head of Technology Department, Smart Region, Digital Transformation Coordination Management Department, Ministry of Digital Development and Communications, Novosibirsk Region; Alexander Lulko, Head of Department of Industry, Innovations and Entrepreneurship of Novosibirsk City Administration; Natalia Mironova, Head of Sector, Macro-regional branch Siberia, PJSC Rostelecom; Alexander Bakirov, Projects Manager of Siberia Macro-regional Branch, PJSC Rostelecom; Evgeniy Ivanov, MegaFon’s Digital Projects Director in the Urals and Siberia; Sergey Shubin , Head of ICT Department, Executive Committee of the Inter-regional Association “Siberian Accord” (IASA); and Vladimir Vysotskiy, CEO of AT Consulting Vostok.

Panelists discussed the opportunities offered by ‘Digital Economy’ program to improve municipal and regional infrastructure, increased demands to the quality of urban environment; financing of digital initiatives; the most sought-after areas of Smart City / Smart Region; the first practical outcomes of the implementation of Smart City projects across Siberia, and the need for cross-regional cooperation on the path towards a Smart Country. Another subject of discussion were the opportunities Smart City and Smart Region project offer telecom service providers, and their approaches to developing dedicated solutions for Smart City / Smart Region.

The next session showcased solutions, which can be harnessed by Smart City. Pavel Kondakov, Managing Director of the Center for Strategic Development and Digital Transformation at LANIT-Integration, entitled his report “Smart City in Russia. Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow. Regions’ Role in Digital Transformation”. Dmitriy Vasilyev, First Deputy CEO and CTO of TransTeleCom Macro-region Western Siberia spoke about affordable Wi-Fi for residents and visitors. Andrey Dymchenko, White Soft’s CEO, made an overview of the first steps on the path towards Smart City. Dmitriy Vasilenko, Senior Solutions Engineer for Analog Devices at Arrow Electronics, told the audience about the reliability of wireless data collection networks featuring critical infrastructure transmitters.  Evgeniy Kryukov, Sales Director of AT Consulting Vostok, spoke about expectations vs reality when it comes to Smart City projects. The session before lunch was concluded by Alexey Semchenko, Chief Marketing Officer at WAVIoT, with an overview of NB-Fi based wireless solutions for Smart City.

After lunch, the audience was introduced to more Smart City solutions. CEO of ICBCom Oleg Lisyutenko shared on the corporate experience in IoT solutions for digital transformation of municipal infrastructure. A practical case of telemetrics for utilities was presented on the example of Smart Accol project in Kazakhstan by Maxim Karulya, Sales Director of Vega-Absolut. Sergey Kirillov, Senior Product Manager at Data East, spoke about a domestic cloud geo-information system for municipalities, which can be used to control municipal infrastructure. Roman Komissarov, Regional Business Development Manager at Promobot, shared on using service robots for Smart City purposes. The last report of the forum was delivered by Anatoliy Sartakov, Director of Telecommunication Equipment Design Bureau Mars, who spoke about SNBWAN synchronous network for Smart Cities with population over 1 million.

The event concluded with a discussion featuring Alexey Sobolev, Head of Smart City at the NPPA Association; Oleg Lisyutenko, CEO of ICBCom, Maxim Karulya, Sales Director of Vega-Absolut; Sergey Kirillov, Senior Product Manager at Data East; Roman Komissarov, Regional Business Development Manager at Promobot; Alexey Semchenko, CMO at WAVIoT, and Anatoliy Sartakov, Director of Telecommunication Equipment Design Bureau Mars.

The forum demonstrated that one of the hottest topics for municipal and regional governments is how to raise financing for Smart City and Smart Region projects. Having little hopes for federal co-financing, most of the regions have already realized that raising money will be their own responsibility. Few regional budgets can afford to allocate significant funds on Smart City / Smart Region projects, so opportunities for private financing, primarily through private-public partnerships and concessions, is of special interest to the public servants. .

Smart City & Region in Novosibirsk has reaffirmed the importance of exchanging opinions, approaches and best practices of Smart City between all stakeholders in the digital transformation of the economy. The series of Smart City & Region forums will conclude with an event in Moscow on December 6th.