As cities around the world target so-called “smart city” development, Tainan City Government is pressing forward with its own project to turn Tainan into a smart city. The goal of building a smart city is to enhance quality of life by using urban informatics and technology to improve services and cater to residents’ needs. To gather input on shaping and refining its measures for achieving this goal, the City Government organized a consultative conference that took place on August 25th.
The conference was attended by nine invited specialists and scholars with a variety of expertise in related fields. Discussion was focused on the three main issues of how to design the best policies for smart city development, how to cooperate with the private sector and applicably skilled individuals in pursuit of this goal, and how to employ the internet of things (IoT) to turn Tainan City into a smart city and capital of culture.
At the conference, the City Government’s Information Management Center gave a briefing on Tainan’s development in the application of smart technology, and introduced the city’s key projects and initiatives in this sphere, including those for open data, e-government, instant disaster prevention, smart transportation, and smart travel services. Mayor William Lai emphasized that the core value of Tainan’s smart city project is to utilize technology to solve problems and maximize convenience in the people’s daily life.
The attending experts stressed that the key to building a smart city was to apply technology for purposes that the people really cared about. Most of them supported the idea of developing applications for travel or cultural activities, while some proposed that the government establish a user-friendly open data platform and cultivate more personnel with relevant technical skills. They also advised that it would be better for the government to integrate current technological resources rather than investing in discrete technological development projects.
The conference was successful in enabling City Hall officials to gain a deeper understanding of the basic requirements for becoming a smart city, including the development of open government and utilization of the internet of things. At the close of the conference, Mayor Lai said he hoped that what they had learned from the discussions would help his administration advance as speedily as possible in making Tainan into a smart city. He emphasized that the smart city project must be based first and foremost upon consideration of the people’s needs, and that meeting those needs and solving city residents’ problems must always be the government’s top priority.