North Luzon Monitor

North Luzon

Baguio transforms services with Cisco-powered Smart City Command Center

BAGUIO City is close to realizing its dream of becoming the first Smart City in the Country with its partnership with Cisco allowing city planners to streamline and transform city management decisions and public services for its citizens.

In addition to providing the digital infrastructure and technologies underlying the platform, Cisco has trained personnel with the necessary skills to operate the platform as part of its Country Digital Acceleration (CDA) program, UGNAYAN 2030.

According to a study commissioned by the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA), Baguio might face urban decay if concerns such as overcrowding, and waste management are left unaddressed in the next 25 years. To combat this, Cisco worked with Quantela to build a Command Center which centralized Baguio’s digital operations and allowed city planners to manage processes across all city departments and agencies.

Today, the command center serves as the core of the city’s operations, enabling real-time monitoring, analysis, decision-making, and rapid response to emergencies.

Cisco’s networking, security, and collaboration technologies power the underlying infrastructure of the platform. The solution includes industrial and network switches, data center architecture, as well as firewalls, and advanced threat detection response tools, ensuring that the command center is secure from end to end at all times.

These solutions enable the Smart City Command Center to aggregate and analyze data from city infrastructure sensors and other data sources seamlessly and securely. It equips city planners and officials with a holistic view of the entire smart city ecosystem, from traffic patterns and available parking lots to environmental conditions and public safety measures, optimizing the speed and scale of digital services for citizens of Baguio.

Mayor Benjamin Magalong emphasized that building a smart city takes careful planning and a strong partnership foundation.
“To become a smart city, having a well-defined plan is crucial. Recognizing this, we in the city government initiated discussions with Cisco regarding a potential partnership,” said Magalong. “The response from Cisco was exceedingly impressive as they promptly organized themselves and provided a comprehensive response. Their willingness to collaborate positions us closer to our goal of transforming into a smart city.”

Zaza Soriano-Nicart, Cisco Philippines’ Managing Director, said in line with their purpose of powering an inclusive future for all, Cisco has always believed in leveraging the power of public-private partnership to build smart, inclusive, and sustainable communities.
“We recognize that all of this is only possible with trust, commitment, and respect. We thank Mayor Benjamin Magalong and his team for their trust and partnership. We hope to continue building on this foundation to address Baguio’s most pressing challenges together through the Smart City Command Center,” Soriano-Nicart.

The Baguio Smart City Command Center is part of Cisco’s CDA program in the Philippines, UGNAYAN 2030, a strategic partnership with governments worldwide to accelerate their national digitalization agendas and create new value for the country, its businesses, and its citizens. Individual projects in countries are cross-pollinated in Cisco’s wider CDA ecosystem, currently present across 48 countries globally. PR

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