Da Nang was granted with the Smart City Award Viet Nam for the 5^th time at a ceremony held in Ha Noi on December 3 by the Viet Nam Software and Information Technology Services Association (VINASA).

In addition, the central beach city was honoured with 3 thematic awards: Smart Management and Operation City (2^nd consecutive time); Attractive Innovation City (4^th time); and Smart, Green, Clean Environmental Management City (3^rd time).

The city promotes digital transformation through various activities. IN PHOTO: People scan QR codes to identify their bank accounts. Photo: C.THANG - M.QUE

Maintaining positive results

The Smart City Award Viet Nam is an annual award organised by VINASA since 2020 to recognise and honour cities, organisations, and businesses that have significantly contributed to making cities smarter, more livable, branded, competitive, and sustainable.

The award also encourages businesses to innovate products and advanced technology solutions. It is a channel to connect supply and demand, and cooperate to build suitable models to accelerate the development of smart cities in Viet Nam. Thus, since the award was first organised by VINASA, Da Nang has been honoured as a smart city for 5 consecutive years from 2020-2024.

To achieve the abovementioned results, Da Nang takes people and businesses as the centre during the building process of a smart city. It has proactively implemented the tasks assigned by the central government according to Decision No. 950/QD-TTg dated August 1, 2018 of the Prime Minister in the Project on sustainable smart urban development in Viet Nam to 2025, with a vision to 2030, and has basically completed all 11 tasks to 2025.

After more than 5 years of implementing Decision No. 6439/QD-UBND dated December 29, 2018 of the municipal People's Committee on the project to build a smart city for the 2018-2025 period, with a vision to 2030, the city has achieved many consistent results in 6 pillars and 16 priority areas.

Specifically, 28 priority projects under the ‘Smart City’ project have been completed and put into use with a total implementation cost of VND 220.6 billion. Four projects, totalling VND 82.5 billion, have had construction designs approved and are expected to be put into use in 2024-2025. Eight projects have had investment policies approved with a total cost of over VND 884 billion.

The city has deployed many applications, utilities and channels for people and businesses to use, and increase interactions between the government and people in the digital environment such as Danang Smart City multi-service and utility integration platform (over 1.2 million downloads); MyPortal digital citizen platform (over 320,000 people with accounts); 1 digital data warehouse on the e-Government system; Da Nang Feedback and Rescue Portal (1,000 feedbacks/month); Give and Receive app and Call Centre (10,000 feedbacks/month); and Chatbot application for automatic consultation on administrative procedure instructions and public services (more than 4,000 consultations/month).

A representative of Acronics Solutions Company Limited presenting the company's technology solutions. Photo: C.THANG - M.QUE

Continue to promote digital transformation

Mr. Nguyen Trong Tuan, Director of Acronics Solutions Co., Ltd., commented that the building of smart cities is one of the main development trends in the region  and in the world as well.

To anticipate that trend, Da Nang is making many positive changes in terms of policies, investment environment, research, implementation and practical application.

Mr. Tuan hoped that the city will continue to support product development, connect investors and markets to improve the professional qualifications of human resources, and create high-quality electronic tech products.

He, at the same time, stressed the need for the city to perfect policies to open up and support the strength of startups and tech companies, emphasising the role of the fields: information technology, software, and semiconductor to increase competitiveness with the international market as these are the elements to create large and important added values ​​in the digital economy, sustainable digital transformation for the city.

Mr. Le Ngoc Tri, CEO of EM&AI JSC, said that Da Nang achieving the title of the only Smart City in Viet Nam is a great pride, but it also requires businesses and startups to deserve with this position.

Dr. Nguyen Ha Huy Cuong, Deputy Director in charge of the Software Development Centre (SDC) of the University of Da Nang, assessed that the city is on the right track in developing a smart city with the process of changing from a traditional model to a digital model based on 4 technology factors including: cloud computing, big data, AI, and internet of things (IoT).

In the coming time, SDC will continue to contribute to the city on the digital transformation roadmap, especially in the fields of education and training.

Mr. Tran Ngoc Thach, Deputy Director of the municipal Department of Information and Communications, said that the continued honour as "Smart City of Vietnam" for the 5^th consecutive time is thanks to the positive contributions and consensus from state management agencies and people, businesses, especially community digital technology groups and Project 06 (Project on developing applications of population data, identification and electronic authentication to serve national digital transformation in the period 2022-2025, with a vision to 2030) directly guiding people to create digital citizen accounts and use online public services, bringing technology closer to all classes.

Reporting by M.QUE, C.THANG - Translating by M.DUNG