Page 59 - Enhancing innovation and participation in smart sustainable cities

United for Smart Sustainable Cities
Enhancing Innovation and Participation

In addition, 298.25 million of existing farming and non-farming sector workforce will need to be skilled, reskilled
and upskilled. Thus, appropriate infrastructure needs to be created whilst keeping in mind the sheer numbers,
sectoral divisions and spatial disbursal, not only across the country but also possible requirements in other parts
of the world.
Most ovocational training programmes are not aligned to the requirements of the industry. As a result of the
above, a piquant situation exists in the country wherein unemployment continues to coexist with a lack of requisite
numbers of skilled people at functional level to build roads and bridges, lay pipelines, work in factories, engage in
offshore drilling, build ships etc.
One of the biggest challenges of skill development in India is that 93% of the workforce is in informal/unorganized
sectors. Consequently, it is difficult to map existing skills in the unorganized sectors and gauge the skilling
requirements. On the other hand, the rate of job growth in informal sectors is estimated to be twice that of formal
sectors.

Women constitute almost half of the demographic dividend. The key challenge here is to increase their
participation in the country’s labour force, which is directly linked to the economic growth of the country. Census
data has revealed that there has been a continuing fall in the labour force participation rate of women from 33.3%
to 26.5% in rural areas, and from 17.8% to 15.5% in six urban areas between 2004 and 2011. Mainstreaming
gender roles by skilling women in non-traditional roles and increasing gender sensitivity in the workplace will have
a catalytic effect on productivity and be a smart economic decision.
Entrepreneurship based on innovation has immense growth potential. However, the number of local
entrepreneurs emerging every year in India is very low. The Global Innovation Index 2014 ranks India 76 out of 7
143 countries. Accelerating entrepreneurship especially those based on innovation is crucial for large-scale
employment generation in India. The growth and prosperity of all economies remain highly dependent on
entrepreneurial activity. Entrepreneurs are the essence of economic growth; they provide a source of income and
employment for themselves, create employment for others, produce new and innovative products or services,
and drive greater upstream and downstream value-chain activities. Supportive environments are increasingly
essential to successful entrepreneurship and these are evolving across the world. The ideal entrepreneurial
environment has five pillars: access to funding, entrepreneurial culture, supportive regulatory and tax regimes,
educational systems that support entrepreneurial mindsets and a coordinated approach that links the public,
private and voluntary sectors.

1.3 Area of relevance of U4SSC

This involves creating a smart work force for the country, and since more than 400 million people in India live in
cities, ‘Smart People’ would be the relevant domain for this solution.

2 The smart project(s)

2.1 Vision and content

Vision: to create an ecosystem of empowerment by skilling on a large scale at speed, with high standards and to
promote a culture of innovation-based entrepreneurship which can generate wealth and employment so as to
ensure sustainable livelihoods for all citizens in the country.
Mission: create a demand for skilling across the country; correct and align skilling with required competencies;
connect the supply of skilled human resources with sectoral demands; certify and assess in alignment with global
and national standards; and catalyse an ecosystem wherein productive and innovative entrepreneurship
germinates, sustains and grows leading to the creation of a more dynamic entrepreneurial economy and more
formal wage employment.
Relevance to citywide vision and strategy and its contribution to its competitiveness
Any city has got to roll out services to its citizens. For this purpose, there is a need for having a skilled work force.
A city can develop and compete with others only if it has a highly skilled workforce to meet its requirements.

U4SSC series 57