Jointly organised by the Da Nang government and the Finnish Embassy in Viet Nam, a seminar, entitled ‘Cooperation in Developing a Smart City and Innovations’, took place in the city on Wednesday.

The city’s Traffic Signals and Public Transport Control Centre has helped to ensure traffic order at intersections and alleviate congestion during rush hours

In his opening speech, municipal People’s Committee Vice Chairman Ho Ky Minh highlighted the significance of the seminar in celebrating the 45th anniversary of the diplomatic ties between the two countries, and strengthening the  bilateral friendship and cooperation in developing a smart city and creating innovations. 

It was reported at the event that the municipal government, in 2014, approved the deployment of a project for developing Da Nang into a smart city, with a focus on transport services, water supplies, drainage, food hygiene and safety, and connectivity.

In particular, an e-government system was officially put into operation in the city in the same year with the application of the ‘one-stop-shop’ mechanism, and software on managing government employees and administrative dossiers.

To date, the transfer of the city’s e-government model to many other localities nationwide has been conducted effectively.

Da Nang is now one of the priority localities enjoying the benefits of the ongoing Viet Nam-Finland Innovation Partnership Programme Phase 2 (IPP2), which partly helping the city realise its goal of becoming a start-up and innovation destination in the near future.

Mr Marko Saarinen, the Counsellor and Head of Development Cooperation, Embassy of Finland in Viet Nam, remarked that Da Nang is a dynamic and modern city with its firm stature as a key hub in Central Viet Nam. He affirmed Finland’s willingness to boost cooperation with Da Nang, especially in terms of smart city development and innovations. 

The Finnish expert also vowed that Finnish companies would continue to share innovative solutions in which Da Nang shows its keen interest, especially the establishment of a data centre.

Municipal Department of Information and Communications Director Nguyen Quang Thanh said the already-approved IT architecture framework for the smarty city project features 5 levels in total, namely connection, monitoring, storage, processing-analysis, and control and automation of some process management.

In the coming time, an emphasis will be placed on building a smart government, and smart living and environment.

Director Thanh asked for help from Finnish government to introduce Da Nang to their smart models and applications that have been successfully used in practice, especially those for processing, analysing and data based decision making. 

Ms Pipa Turvanen from Finland’s Turku Science Park briefed the participants at the seminar on the concept of circulation data system which might be considered as an ideal solution to help Da Nang implement the last 2 levels: processing – analysis, and control and automation of some process management.

In his remarks, Vice Chairman Minh highly appreciated all the constructive opinions and recommendations from the above Finnish experts, and affirmed these ideas might be added to the city’s overall socio-economic development orientations.