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Development and Validation of ICT for Energy
Management: Building Capacities towards Smart Cities
through Sustainable Resource Use

Gagan Preet Kaur1*, Puja Gupta1, and Matt Syal2
1Department of Resource Management and Design Application, Lady Irwin College,
University Of Delhi, Delhi, India
2School of Planning, Design and Construction, Michigan State University, USA

International Journal of Abstract. A smart city uses information and communication technologies (ICT)
Environment and to enhance the quality and performance of urban services and to reduce costs
Sustainability [IJES] and resource consumption. Education with ICT strategies towards efficient use
ISSN 1927-9566 of resources, such as energy, will guide us on our journey towards the goal of
Vol. 5 No. 1, pp. 56-63 climate change abatement and making cities smarter, since smart people make
(2016) smart cities. Youth of today are the driving force of tomorrow. Through them, we
can tap future generations, policies and development. This study involves
designing a capacity building program and administering it to the sample with
the goal of measuring the enhancement of knowledge and changing perceptions
regarding energy management and energy auditing skills, pre- and post-
intervention. Energy management was studied in terms of energy-related
carbon emissions, renewable energy, energy conservation practices, energy
efficient appliances, and energy audit. The sample constitutes 470 students from
schools and colleges of selected universities in Delhi, India.

The paper will discuss curriculum analysis, which was done to appraise the
inclusion of information on energy management in school and college curricula,
followed by pre-intervention outcomes with respect to the sample’s knowledge,
perception and skills. The paper also discusses strategies used in designing and
administering the capacity building program. The program includes capacity-
building aids blended with educational technology in an information-sharing
mode of instruction. Interactive media such as technology based learning
(mobile application, game), simulation exercises, multimedia, lectures and group
discussion is used.

Keywords. Capacity Building, ICT strategies, Renewable Energy, Smart Cities,
Youth
*Correspondence:

gaganpreet66@gmail.com

1. Introduction sion, 2002). Energy is central to sustainable
development and poverty reduction efforts. It
Sustainability is the ability to maintain balance affects all aspects of development - social, eco-
of a certain process or state in any system. nomic, and environmental - including liveli-
Resources, such as water, energy, forests, hoods, access to water, agricultural produc-
minerals etc., are the backbone of every tivity, health, population levels, education, and
economy and provide two basic functions: raw gender-related issues (United Nations Develop-
materials for production of goods and services ment Programme [UNDP], 2013). It is the prime
and environmental services. Recycling, reducing mover of economic growth and is vital to the
waste generation and conservation of valuable sustenance of a modern economy. Future eco-
resources are our best hopes so that our nomic growth depends on the long-term avail-
ecosystems will still be capable of providing for
the generations to come (European Commis-