IfG.CC - The Potsdam eGovernment Competence Center

• Asian cities are among the most congested, accident-prone in the world
• AI-driven intelligent traffic management systems could significantly improve not just traffic conditions, but bring ecological and business benefits as well

Cities across Asia are growing exponentially, and there seems to be no end in sight to the rapid urbanization that is driving city populations up around the world’s largest continent.

When you think of smart cities, images of Singapore, China, and Japan usually pop into your head, irrespective of which part of the world you live in.

It’s because of all the news about how cities in these Asian countries are accelerating projects in this avenue, leveraging technologies such as the internet of things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), and 5G networks.

Singapore is the smartest Asian city and the seventh smartest in the world, according to the 2023 Smart City Index.

Published by Swiss business school Institute for Management Development (IMD) on Tuesday, the index ranks 141 cities by how they use technology to address the challenges they face to achieve a higher quality of life.

Like it or not, facial recognition is becoming hard to avoid.

Applications of the biometric tech were already is wide use before the coronavirus pandemic, ranging from contact-free payment methods to performing quick, verifiable id checks at entrance and exit points. With COVID-19 requiring extra precautionary measures to be taken when outdoors, however, many countries in Asia began exhibiting usage of biometric machines that scanned for temperature changes, and could even detect if faces were wearing masks.

Two is company, but 21 is definitely a crowd. Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) is the region's largest multilateral grouping and (one hopes) an excellent forum for trade-related issues. But as the largely inconsequential outcome of last year's 2nd Apec High-Level Symposium on e-Government shows, e-government and regional declarations of intent make for uneasy bedfellows.

Speaking to FutureGov, Singapore’s Minister for Communications and Information, Yaacob Ibrahim, shared, “Application of ICT in public sector is one of the key initiatives of the ASEAN ICT Masterplan 2015. But recognising that different states have different levels of development, ASEAN has left the implementation of these initiatives to the various states.”

Korea topped the Gartner study with 93 percent penetration in 2007, with this figure expected to hit 97 percent in 2012.

Taiwan, Korea, Hong Kong and New Zealand are placed 11th to 14th in the overall rankings.

One of the key pillars of the Index is ‘government usage’, where Asian countries have performed especially strongly. Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Bahrain and US took the first five places, and Malaysia was ranked the 6th.

In back-to-back summits over five days, they will seek ways and means of mobilising human, technical and financial resources needed to deploy ICT to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality and empowerment of women, reduce child mortality, combat malaria, HIV/AIDS and other diseases, ensure environmental sustainability, public safety, and development of global partnerships for sustainable development.

With digitalization, open source technology is gaining momentum and governments are increasingly embracing open source solutions. In open government initiatives, open source has led to greater citizen participation and contribution. eGov Innovation speaks to Damien Wong, Vice President & General Manager ASEAN, Red Hat, on how government agencies can tap on open source to foster innovation, accelerate digital transformation and benefit citizens.

Governments emerging as AI innovation drivers or leaders

Supportive government framework and policies are expected to enable Asia Pacific to emerge as the global epicentre for the growth of artificial intelligence (AI).

Several countries across the region are focusing on leveraging AI, enhancing productivity and competitiveness. Though the key objectives of different government entities may vary from each other, all of them want to leverage their strengths to emerge either as AI innovation drivers or leaders.

For the fifth year in a row, researchers at Brown University evaluated 198 nations around the world to assess progress in digital-government initiatives. While the top three countries are the same as last year--Taiwan, Singapore and the United States, in that order--the ones on their tail changed a bit. Hong Kong climbed to fourth place from eleventh last year, and China overtook Canada to finish in the top five. The study also showed that 19 percent of government agencies around the world are offering online services, compared to 21 percent in 2004.

Globally, there has been greater emphasis on developing e-government initiatives as administrations look to boost their competitiveness, transparency and efficiency, noted David Siah, senior director at CrimsonLogic's e-government business division.

At the same time, there is also rising expectation from citizens for government agencies to modernize government-to-citizen services as well as improve and make e-citizen services more accessible, Siah said in an e-mail.

According to Dane Anderson, vice-president, Consulting & Vertical Markets, IDC Asia Pacific, 33% of urban Internet users in the region access government information when they log onto the Internet.

Recent years have seen governments in the Asia-Pacific actively encouraging the adoption of open systems as an alternative or complementary operating system environment for e-government initiatives, said Mr Rick Sewell, business manager (Linux, Enterprise Storage and Servers) at HP Asia-Pacific and Japan, adding that the growth opportunities for Linux in the region are massive.

Qinghai is the largest province in China, stretching across the northeastern Tibetan Plateau over an area of 721,000 km2 - 7.5 per cent of the country. But Qinghai has one of the country’s smallest populations; 5.2 million people are scattered in pockets of the vast expanse of mountains, deserts and grasslands.