Smart Cities-Opportunities and Challenges

Dr. Sirajuddin Ahmed is a Professor in Department of Civil Engineering at Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi. He obtained his Masters in Engineering from Delhi College of Engineering. He was awarded his Ph.D from the University of Wales, UK in 2008. His research interest includes water treatment, constructed wetlands and other natural wastewater treatment technologies, recycling and reuse of wastewater, urban utilities and services, sustainable development, environmental economics. He has published 98 research articles in peer reviewed journals and conference proceedings. He is a regular reviewer of international journals viz. Natural Resources and Conservation, Atmospheric Pollution Research, Science of the Total Environment, Waste and Resources Management, African Journal of Environmental Science and Technology, Journal of Cleaner Production, Current Science, Int. J. of Environment and Waste Management, and Indian Journal of Environmental Protection. Dr. Ahmed is a Fellow member of Institution of Engineers (India) and Wessesx Institute, UK.Dr. S. M. Abbas is a Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering, Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi, India. He obtained his B.Sc. Engineering (Civil) and M.Sc. Engineering (Building Engineering) from Zakir Husain College of Engineering & Technology, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh. He obtained  his Ph.D (Civil Engineering) from IIT Delhi. His major areas of research interest are ground improvement techniques, rockfill modeling, geotechnical earthquake engineering, seismic response of foundations, geotechnical characterization of pond ash/ flyash. He has published more than 25 research papers in peer reviewed journals and conferences. He has also published two books in the area of rockfill materials. He got IJOG (an ASCE publication) best paper award. He is a member of ASCE, ISET, IGS, and Fellow of ISRD. Dr. Hina Zia is currently Professor and Dean at the Faculty of Architecture and Ekistics, Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi, India. She is a qualified architect and urban and rural planner. Her specific interest lies in business models on issues pertaining to growing urbanization. She has worked extensively on technical development and pilot implementation of LEED for cities - a performance based rating system by GBCI in order to mainstream cities and urban settlements of all scales towards livability, efficiency, sustainability and inclusiveness. She has authored and contributed to several books and publications in the domain of sustainable built environment and has more than 25 papers in peer reviewed journals and conference proceedings. She was a member of the Guidelines Development Group for Healthy Housing, WHO, member of the multi-stakeholder Advisory Committee, UN's 10YFP Programme on Sustainable Buildings & Construction, editorial board member of Renewable and Sustainable Energy: An International Journal and is a regular reviewer of several reputed journals.