After more than 5 years since the Da Nang People's Committee issued Decision No. 6439/QD-UBND dated December 29, 2018 on project to build Da Nang into a smart city during the 2018-2025 period, with a vision to 2030, the city has achieved many positive results, basically completing specific goals.

Da Nang has achieved many results, basically completing specific goals after 5 years of implementing the project to build Da Nang into a smart city. IN PHOTO: Activities at the municipal-level the Intelligent Operation Centre (IOC). Photo: MAI QUE

Convenient for dwellers and businesses

As recorded at the Lien Chieu District-based Medical Centre on the morning of August 1, most visitors used smartphones to open QR code of their health insurance cards on the Vietnam Social Security (VssID) app instead of using paper cards as before.

Mrs. Tran Thi Ly, a resident of Hoa Minh Ward, Lien Chieu District, highlighted that, with VssID and VNeID apps installed on the smart phone, the handling of medical examination, treatment or administrative procedures was more convenient, saving time and reducing many types of documents.

To bring convenience to people as above, the city has updated information about personal identification number/citizen identity card into the national database on insurance, synchronised with the national database on population to serve the integration of health insurance cards into chip-based citizen identity cards. Also, the participation of people in social insurance and electronic health books has been integrated into eID accounts at level-2.

Data released by the municipal Department of Information and Communications show that, as of June 15, the city’s Social Insurance sector had synchronised nearly 1.09 million people, reaching 99% of the number of people participating in social insurance, health insurance, and voluntary insurance in the city. This is one of the positive results from the implementation of the abovementioned project.

Accordingly, the project is divided into three phases. In particular, by 2020, infrastructure, platform and smart data were already prepared. The city then targets to smarten applications by 2025, and smarten community applications and complete the construction of a smart urban, synchronously connecting with networks of smart urban in the country and ASEAN region by 2030.

To date, the city has completed and put into use 27 priority projects totalling VND 214.4 billion. Four of them have construction design documents approved with a total cost of VND 82.5 billion and are expected to be put into use in 2024-2025. Investment policy decisions have been approved for 8 projects worth over VND 884 billion in total. Notable among them are the VND 404 billion project on modernizing the command centre, and the VND 258 billion project on building an integrated centre for controlling the ability to recover green and smart urban areas.

Besides, the city has already deployed many apps, utilities and channels for people and businesses to use, and increase interaction between the government and people in the digital environment.

Included are the multifunctional Danang Smart City app (over 1.2 million downloads), the MyPortal digital citizen platform (over 320,000 accounts), a digital data warehouse on the e-government system, the Da Nang Feedback and Rescue Portal (1,000 feedbacks/month), the Give and Receive app and Call Centre (10,000 feedbacks/month), and Chatbot app for automatic consultation on administrative procedures and public services (more than 4,000 consultations/month).

A local scanning QR codes to perform public procedures online at the headquarters of the Thanh Khe Dong Ward People's Committee. Photo: M.Q

Key tasks until 2025

According to Decision No. 934/QD-UBND dated April 7, 2022 on the plan to implement the project to build Da Nang into a smart city during the 2022-2025 period, Da Nang will prioritise developing 5G network and Internet of Things (IoT) infrastructure; and completing the upgrade and expansion of the city’s data centre with cloud computing platforms.

Importance will be attached to developing a network of surveillance cameras in the city, completing a shared data warehouse to ensure the ability to process diverse types of data; as well as continuing to upgrade and complete specialised monitoring centres connecting and sharing with the Intelligent Operation Centres (IOC) at municipal and district levels.

In addition, the city will lay an emphasis on forming a synchronous and unified urban infrastructure database system on the GIS geographic information system with full layers of land, construction, traffic data, etc.

To achieve the aforementioned goals, Mr. Nguyen Quang Thanh, Director of the municipal Department of Information and Communications, said that the department will continue to coordinate with units and localities to deploy and effectively exploit specialised apps, databases, and online public services; and at the same time, promote domestic and international cooperation, and attract resources and technology to support the building of the smart city.

Moreover, the city has asked for support from the central government to mobilise resources and guide Da Nang on procedures and processes for building international fiber optic cable stations; as well as to early issue guidelines on the level of data openness, financial policies, fees and charges for the exploitation and use of open data and data services of State agencies, creating revenue sources to maintain and develop digital data.

Reporting by M.QUE - Translating by M.DUNG