Cisco and ILFS Technologies Ltd (ITL), a technology solutions company of Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services, announced on Monday a strategic collaboration to utilise the Internet of Everything (IoT) to develop digital solutions for India's infrastructure and smart cities. They will jointly go to market to pursue growing opportunities, said Dinesh Malkani, president, Sales, Cisco India and SAARC.

This was announced at inaugural session of the two-day Cisco India summit, on powering the digital economy, in Bangalore.

The broad themes on which the collaboration will work include smart city infrastructure solutions, traffic and transportation, public safety and security and e-governance; and next-generation urban services, parking, lighting, traffic and citizen engagement services.  

The collaboration will focus on bringing together the best-in-class, complementary capabilities of both the companies, said Anil Menon, Cisco deputy chief globalisation officer and president, Smart+Connected Communities. The idea of smart city is so big, people are looking for partnership, he added.

Malkani added, "Network has to be made available to people just like water and electricity in order to reduce disparity between urban and rural people. And our rural markets are not small today."