HCM City (VNA) – Ho Chi Minh City plans to become asmart city, and the task requires concerted efforts by the administration andinformation technology community, a city leader has said.
Speaking at a March 10 meeting with informationtechnology executives, Tran Vinh Tuyen, Vice Chairman of the municipal People’sCommittee, said: “Information technology is the most important factor insuccessfully building a smart city, and the city would like to seek solutionsand contributions from information technology companies.”
Nguyen Quoc Cuong, deputy director of the city’sDepartment of Information and Communications, said the city is drafting amaster plan to build a smart city in 2017-20 that seeks to ensure a highquality of living and working and sustainability.
“The project should appraise the current digitalcapability, identify priority fields and then come up with a detailed roadmapto create the smart city.
“The smart city’s central mission will be theconvenience of local residents, create an open playing field for all companiesand take advantage of all international and domestic resources, and this willneed close co-operation between research institutes, scientists, technologycompanies, and financial organisations.
“City authorities should pledge to support thetask and the achievements should be measured based on international standardsand the city’s peculiar conditions.”
The city has already begun to work on the smart city programme, creating acommon city-wide database with an open eco-system and conceiving links betweenthe smart city and its long-cherished administrative autonomy plans.
The smart city will comprise three technicalaspects - a data collection system with cameras, censors, and devices for theInternet of Things and information technology system, a database system, and ananalysis system.
“To operate a smart city will requireprofessional managers and staff,” Cuong said.
Authorities would guide universities and research institutes in trainingrequirements, he said.
“The smart city will not depend on any[particular] suppliers and have a unified architecture and easy connectivitybetween all levels of authorities, from city to commune.”
At the meeting, the IT business executivesdisplayed many solutions for a smart city.-VNA