Before urban technology found its way to Drancy
Only ten years ago, Drancy was one of the poorest cities in France lacking business and high-quality amenities. Crime-ridden streets and a lack of jobs caused a net outflow of citizens. Residents, schools, and hospitals had limited access to the Internet and other modern technologies, and the IT organisation had to forego new technology initiatives due to an insufficient, aging infrastructure.
But recently, the suburb has witnessed a complete turnaround, as Mayor Jean Christophe Lagarde explains, “Our city has become a hub for high tech industries and higher education through the advent of new networking technologies. We owe a debt of gratitude to Cisco for its support of our city’s transformation, in terms of both superior technology and the creation of real business value.”
Some of the technological solutions
- Cisco TelePresence implemented for global communication
- Cisco Video Surveillance Manager, in combinations with Cisco Physical Access Control, for local and national police safety and security activities
- Fiber network managed by Cisco to enable virtualization, data center growth, and high performance
Urban technology benefits in Drancy
- Drancy optimised its IT investment by sharing its data center and technologies with nearby municipalities, new companies and schools
- The investments of Drancy already attracted a huge company to the area (Eurocopter) along with 750 jobs for the community. A top engineering school also chose to establish itself in Drancy bringing 1,700 students and 200 professors to the area.
- Reduced crime by 30 percent to become the second-safest suburb of Paris.
- Cloud-based applications including open source email and Web mail have reduced costs by about 6,000 euros per year and improved service levels. For example, citizens now enjoy a cloud-based system for scheduling appointments at the city’s health care center, where previously 25% of callers were lost waiting on hold.
Link to
an interview with Cisco's manager on urban innovations, Mr.
Gordon Feller.
For more information on what Cisco does for the public sector, please visit the Cisco-website.