A corner of Ho Chi Minh City at night (Source: VNA) HCM City (VNA) –The International Smart City Conference opened in Ho Chi Minh City on October25, attracting more than 500 delegates from Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Russia,Taiwan (China), and Thailand.
Speaking at the event, themunicipal Party Secretary Nguyen Thien Nhan listed some of the major challengesthe city is facing like failure to improve its competitiveness in recent years,gap between infrastructure and population growth, and failure to boost and takefull advantage of regional cooperation.
Taking cognisance of these challenges, “in 2016, the city administration decided that becoming a smart city is one of the bestsolutions for effective urban development”, he said.
According to him, there are five main goalsbehind the push to become a smart city: make economic growth more sustainable,improve the living and working conditions of its people, engage citizens incity management, improve public services, and ensure sustainable use of naturalresources.
The administration, businesses, citizens andsocial organisations need to act smarter for developing smart city, he said.
He said there are key factors that enableconversion into a smart city, the first being the administration’s ability toanticipate threats and suggest solutions for economic and social development.This is one of the city’s weaknesses at the moment, he said candidly.
The others are building a shared database forall organisations, businesses and citizens; developing the IT infrastructure;and citizens’ inclusion in assessing development progress, he said.
David Wong, Chairman of the Asian OceanianComputing Industry Organisation, said the digital era encourages the buildingof smart cities, but there are three key challenges not only in Vietnam buteverywhere.
The first is digital infrastructure developmentboth in urban and rural areas.
“This is particularly not easy for a city likeHo Chi Minh City with a population of more than 10 million.”
Speaking at the event, themunicipal Party Secretary Nguyen Thien Nhan listed some of the major challengesthe city is facing like failure to improve its competitiveness in recent years,gap between infrastructure and population growth, and failure to boost and takefull advantage of regional cooperation.
Taking cognisance of these challenges, “in 2016, the city administration decided that becoming a smart city is one of the bestsolutions for effective urban development”, he said.
According to him, there are five main goalsbehind the push to become a smart city: make economic growth more sustainable,improve the living and working conditions of its people, engage citizens incity management, improve public services, and ensure sustainable use of naturalresources.
The administration, businesses, citizens andsocial organisations need to act smarter for developing smart city, he said.
He said there are key factors that enableconversion into a smart city, the first being the administration’s ability toanticipate threats and suggest solutions for economic and social development.This is one of the city’s weaknesses at the moment, he said candidly.
The others are building a shared database forall organisations, businesses and citizens; developing the IT infrastructure;and citizens’ inclusion in assessing development progress, he said.
David Wong, Chairman of the Asian OceanianComputing Industry Organisation, said the digital era encourages the buildingof smart cities, but there are three key challenges not only in Vietnam buteverywhere.
The first is digital infrastructure developmentboth in urban and rural areas.
“This is particularly not easy for a city likeHo Chi Minh City with a population of more than 10 million.”
The second challenge is human resources, but Vietnamhas an advantage since it has so many people, workers and talents, somethingmany countries lack, he said.
The third is cyber security, which has become athreat.
The conference heard more suggestions for buildingsmart cities from local and international participants, like the need to builda standard framework, evaluating the smart city based on smart city index, ICTplatforms for smart cities and e-governance.
This is the second international conference onsmart cities held in Vietnam after the first held in Hanoi two years ago.
Wong said due to the importance of collaborationbetween the public and private sectors and the need for sharing ideas andexpertise between countries in the region to realise the transformation intosmart cities, the conference would be held in a different country each year.
Next year it would be held in Japan, he added.-VNA
The third is cyber security, which has become athreat.
The conference heard more suggestions for buildingsmart cities from local and international participants, like the need to builda standard framework, evaluating the smart city based on smart city index, ICTplatforms for smart cities and e-governance.
This is the second international conference onsmart cities held in Vietnam after the first held in Hanoi two years ago.
Wong said due to the importance of collaborationbetween the public and private sectors and the need for sharing ideas andexpertise between countries in the region to realise the transformation intosmart cities, the conference would be held in a different country each year.
Next year it would be held in Japan, he added.-VNA
VNA
