On Wednesday,  a number of information and technology (IT) experts from Australia, Japan, Singapore, Germany, Taiwan, Israel, the USA and Viet Nam attended a seminar in Da Nang entitled ‘Overall Solutions to Building a Smart City’.

Chairman Tho (centre) at the event

The event had been organised by the municipal People’s Committee (PC), the National Institute of Information and Communications Strategy, and the International Progress Company (AIC).

During the event, the domestic and international experts together discussed their overall solutions to building a smart city in such terms as education, technology and science, healthcare, transport, the environment, trade, construction, agriculture, tourism and human resource training.

A spokesperson for the Australian organisation International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) praised Da Nang for its effective IT applications in its educational establishments.  He introduced the participants to 11 synchronous solutions to develop a smart educational system in the city.  Included were how to plan education and training systems, enhance the quality of teaching staff, develop a test and evaluation system, and create a network of partners at home and abroad. 

The Temasek Group highlighted the vital role of applying an intelligent transportation system in managing urban transport networks in the current context of rapid urbanisation and population and traffic growth.

The Singaporean Group suggested that a traffic control centre should be established in the city before 2018 .  It should be under the joint management of the municipal PC and the Department of Police.  One focus should be on upgrading local traffic signals and surveillance camera systems, and increasing the monitoring of commercial road transport vehicles by GPS.

In addition, the participating experts highly applauded the city’s great potential for tourism development in the future.  They hoped that they would join efforts to develop Da Nang into a leading ‘smart tourism’ city in Asia through upgrading transport and technology infrastructures, making environmentally friendly and sustainable development strategies, creating a close link between State and private businesses, and preserving cultural heritages.

Speaking at the seminar, municipal PC Chairman Huynh Duc Tho remarked, “Over recent years, Da Nang has seen numerous remarkable achievements in its IT applications in many aspects.  In particular, the city has ranked top nationwide in the index for Information and Communication Technology (ICT) applications and development readiness for the 7 consecutive years from 2009 to 2015.  We are getting ready to apply a ‘smart city’ model in order to make Da Nang a modern and sustainable city.”

Chairman Tho noted that the local authorities would consider the solutions presented and bring them to fruition to match with the city’s development strategies.