IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

Technology has continued to become critical amid the COVID-19 pandemic, but many seniors and those with disabilities still feel left behind by the fast-changing technology.

However, things are quite different in Quanzhou, Fujian province, as a batch of 5G-enabled smartphones designed specifically for the elderly and people with disabilities were given out for free to these demographic groups in Quangang district.

Xiamen has achieved remarkable results in promoting the development of intelligent transportation, with a series of innovative measures profoundly changing the travel experience of its citizens.

In terms of data integration and sharing, the transportation department of Xiamen has spearheaded the construction of a major traffic information sharing service platform, which has become the 'smart brain' for urban traffic management. This platform has integrated data resources from 38 organizations and updates over 100 million data records daily. It not only realizes information interconnection and communication across departments and levels but also won the 2024 Digital Xiamen Construction Achievement Typical Case award. The construction of the intelligent traffic management platform by the public security department is also accelerating, providing strong support for urban traffic governance through the development of four major applications such as 'smart monitoring' and 'smart command.'

The Northwestern Chinese province of Gansu states that all of its cities are now covered by its Blockchain Service Network (BSN) service platform.

Per a report from the Chinese Communist Party’s official paper the People’s Daily, Gansu first revealed the BSN in May2019 The provincial federal government at first established 18 nodes within the brand-new stat advancement district in Lanzhou, Gansu’s capital and biggest city. All 13 of the province’s other significant cities have considering that done the same.

In today's rapidly advancing urbanization process, cities are expanding in scale, and infrastructure is becoming increasingly complex. The traditional manual inspection model is facing numerous challenges such as inefficiency, high costs, significant safety risks, and a singular data dimension. How to efficiently, accurately, and safely manage the vast urban systems has become a pressing challenge for urban managers. The integration of drone technology with cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and 5G is giving rise to a brand new solution—the Smart City Drone Inspection Platform. It is akin to equipping cities with a "heavenly eye," redefining the models and boundaries of urban management.

In the city skyline, a group of special "city guardians" is protecting the operation of the city from a unique perspective. They are not birds, but drones equipped with advanced sensors, forming an aerial inspection network that quietly transforms urban management and operations. The emergence of the smart city drone inspection platform signifies that urban governance has entered a new intelligent era.

This innovative urban management tool integrates cutting-edge technologies such as the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and big data analysis to build a three-dimensional, intelligent, and real-time urban perception system. It not only enhances the efficiency of urban management but also redefines the precision and dimensions of urban operations and maintenance, providing strong technical support for smart city construction.

Speaking at this year’s inaugural Cloud Expo Asia in Hong Kong, Victor Lam, CIO of the region’s government, presented a keynote address in which he discussed the federal initiatives under way to boost cloud and data centre development – two markets he believes represent the ‘technology pillars’ in the digital economy.

Lam pointed to the Internet of Things and Big Data as new, disruptive forces, powered by cloud technologies, with the potential to transform Hong Kong into a leading digital hub and global smart city. “Cloud computing is the game-changer for business… offering greater scalability, utility-based pricing and ubiquity among applications, consumers and cloud service providers,” he said.

The metric seeks to quantify the “extent to which government policies are conducive to competitiveness” within a country.

Explaining the results of the rankings, IMD Professor Stéphane Garelli, Director of IMD’s World Competitiveness Center, said, “‘World Competitiveness 2.0’ is thus characterised by a greater self-reliance of countries. It increasingly emphasizes re-industrialization, exports, and a more critical look at delocalization. This trend is triggered by the rise in commodity and transport prices and higher labor costs in emerging economies.”

The study by the academy's E-Government Research Center said Shandong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces top the list of government microblogs, while Beijing, Henan and Heilongjiang had the most officials running their own microblogs.

Global technology powerhouse Siemens AG kicked off a road show for its smart infrastructure truck in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, on Tuesday, aiming to team up with a number of local industry customers and partners to explore cooperation opportunities to build a new ecosystem of smart infrastructure.

The road show will continue its way to Guangdong, Hainan and Fujian provinces and the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region in the coming months, according to the company.

This Chinese city has a grand vision to be the world’s role model for smart and safe cities.

Walking on the streets of Shenzhen, few remnants of its past as a fishing village remains. Instead, the city is a concrete jungle of modern high rise buildings, 40 years after it was named as China’s first special economic zone.

Shenzhen in Guangdong province has approved China's first local law on data management, as the nation continues stepping up efforts to protect personal information.

Details of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone Data Regulations were published by the municipal people's congress on Tuesday. The legislation was passed on June 29 and will take effect on Jan 1.

"The regulations clearly define personal data processing activities and effectively strengthen personal data protection," said Liu Jiachen, head of the city's government services and data management bureau.

Shenzhen ranked the first among the 32 major Chinese cities selected in an online governance service competition after an evaluation by the e-governance office of the State Council on Tuesday.

It also topped the rankings last year, when the evaluation was done.

The ranking is based on the city government's performance in five areas related to online governance service — efficacy, maturity, completeness, coverage and accuracy.

A Shenzhen official says the city's big data approach to governance shows a contrast to Hong Kong's "mindset"

Shenzhen is experimenting with a “party and technology” development model as it aims to become a “socialist model city.”

The city, which is known for its technology industry, was told by Beijing in August to find “the best modern governance practices that promote high quality and sustainable development so it can be held up as an example of civilized society of law and order where people enjoy a high degree of satisfaction.”

Digital technology is playing an increasingly important role in improving urban governance, with coordinated innovation in energy transition and smart mobility becoming essential to achieving the sustainable development goals for cities, according to participants in an international thought leaders' workshop.

By identifying strong local practices and solutions, cities across the world can better respond to the challenges of urbanization and move toward more sustainable, inclusive, and prosperous development, according to the participants.

According to news outlet, Coin Telegraph, one of China’s largest insurance, banking and financial services provider, Ping An has signed an agreement with Sanya’s government in what seems like a future “Smart City” based on evolving technologies such as blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI), cloud-computing etc.

The signed agreement seems to deal with not only the Smart City, but also collaboration in terms of financial investment in helping to further develop China’s municipal. The news outlet has reported based on another source, dubbed, People’s Daily, whom have since outlined the main aspects of the future city as being, “blockchain […] biometrics and other technologies.”

With mandates from China’s central government to push the digitization of public services in the country, Zhejiang province’s Hangzhou is at the forefront of this effort. Yuan Jiayun, deputy secretary of the Communist Party in Zhejiang province, said that digitization is driving innovation in the city, but also in e-governance. Speaking at Alibaba’s The Computing Conference held in Hangzhou’s Yunqi Town today (September 19), he said that the local government would continue integrating the internet into public services.

The activity had the intentions of strengthening the government website construction and management to improve the e-Government management in Hebei province.

Dong Zhenguo, the director of the Hebei Provincial Government Network Management Center, chaired the meeting, and Jiang Chunlan, the chairman of the council, addressed the participants. Over the last five years, the council has held various activities including seminars, lectures, E-government salons and themed forums.

At first glance, the streets of the Xiong'an New Area in North China's Hebei Province look clean and new, yet not particularly remarkable. It is only when driving through them that one senses the pulse of what has been widely referred to in China as "the city of the future." Here, drivers no longer "obey" green lights; the lights "obey" the traffic.

This is no illusion. Behind the so-called "green-wave traffic system" lie more than 20,000 roadside sensors that monitor traffic flow, queue lengths and vehicle types in real time. The data feed into an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered "city brain" that recalibrates signals in milliseconds. As a result, the average number of stops per vehicle has fallen by half, according to official figures.

Xiong'an the 'city of the future' advancing high-quality development after six years

Standing in the middle of a massive construction site with a strong, gusty wind and constant construction noise in the background, Fu Xing, a mid-aged, bespectacled construction manager with a slight figure can barely be heard. Wearing his typical workman outfit ― a white hard hat and a blue vest, Fu tries to explain what is being built and its national significance. But around him, nothing really stands out about the project, except for the sheer size of the site.