Cement Energy and Environment

; reactive to proactive maintenance. Internet of Things (loT), robotics and data/ analytics accelerate this process in long term. This means higher asset performance and lower costs. Technology leap frog is on Infrastructure agenda Gone are the days when Infrastructure was untouched by the technology revolution (telecoms sector being only exception). It is no more about 'brick and mortar'! the way infrastructure is built may appear same by looks but its heart and mind has changed. It has become interactive. And technology is rapidly and fundamentally disrupting the way we plan, design, develop and operate our infra-structure. Traditional grid power infra is challenged by on-site power by Solar power technologies. And this is percolating through the infra space from construction to transportation (driverless cars) Today and in future the user or consumer is wanting take control of how infra works for him. He wants to be in the driver's seat. Thus much of the demand for technological advancement is being driven by the consumers. In the developing markets, disruption is evolving cheaper products for affordability of technologies while in the mature markets, consumer desire is for more for more sophisticated services. Demand for technology is catalyzed also due to a convergence of 'macro' infra-structure requirements (such as reducing emissions) and the 'micro' consumer decisions (such as investing in web-based home thermostats). This means industry, governments and consumers are on the same page. Therefore the future will see all stakeholders pitching for this common goal which is bound to see the macro and micro alignment making technology costs continuing to fall with rising consumer demand. Security becomes Supreme Disruption is boon and if not protected a bane too. In the future and even now the scare is real. All stakeholders - government, regulator, owner and operator are worried about the security of their infra-structure. There is an urgent need to re-duce the vulnerability of infrastructure assets and minimize citizens and users exposure. Threat to infrastructure by Terrorism (both physically and through cyber-attack) is real. The threat of cyber-attacks on infrastructure is increasing. So are the breed of commercial hackers. The growing interconnectedness of systems means dangerous repercussions to life, property and money frauds. A hack on a state power grid has the potential to disrupt millions of businesses , individuals and other infrastructure systems which, in turn, will disrupt millions of other businesses and lives. Compound ing this is a fact not many would want to publicly accept and that is "few infrastructure executives truly understand their risk pro-files and controls; fewer still fully under-stand the cyber element of the risk" as candidly put by KPMG. Improving security (particularly for existing assets) will require investment across the lifecycle from the design and planning phase right through to operations and (in the case of nuclear facilities, for example) decommissioning. The incremental costs will not deter because it is a precondition to safe operation. The future should see development of norms progressively matching to cope with disruption. Security henceforth will take up an important space in infrastructure budgets. The Merger of Public and Private? How & Why? Though started in the 80s, the public-private partnership (PPP) models with the belief that the private sec-tor outperforms the public sector when it comes to procuring and delivering infra-structure, it has come to stay. But the rea-son is that it is no longer true that private always outperforms. The reason is public firms have performed well and are now being benchmarked against private sector performance measures with the gap between the public and the private sector is narrowing down. The knowledge gap between public and private sectors continue to shrink as the cycle of interaction, continues. experience and Innovative Funding · Still in Que improvement Investment into infrastructure is increasingly trying to find new ways to unlock capital. This novelty is all about ensuring that the beneficiaries pay up the cost of infrastructure development. 35