The Smart City Summit 2019, themed ‘Creating Smarter and Securer Cities by Digital Solutions’, took place on Wednesday in Da Nang.

Chairman of the municipal People’s Committee Huynh Duc Tho delivering his opening remarks at the Smart City Summit 2019

Jointly organised by the Da Nang People’s Committee and the Viet Nam Software and IT Services Association (VINASA), the event attracted 600 delegates, including senior leaders from the national government, ministries, the authorities of major Vietnamese cities, along with large enterprises and tech corporations from at home and abroad.

In his remarks at the event, Chairman of the municipal People’s Committee Huynh Duc Tho said, the smart city model is a burgeoning trend deployed by many cities worldwide, and this is also a development requirement set by Da Nang itself.

Notably, in 2014, the city started the operation of the e-government system, creating a firm foundation for implementing the smart city building process.

Also in 2014, the Da Nang administration gave the green light to the implementation of the ‘Building a smarter city’ project, with a focus on piloting some smart apps in the aspects of transport, environment, water supply control, food safety, security, education, healthcare, and data sharing.

Since late last year, the city has issued the framework of the overall smart city architecture and approved the project to develop Da Nang into a smart city for the 2018 - 2025 period, with a vision towards 2030.

In an effort to build Da Nang into a smarter city, the municipal authorities have outlined the objectives, the roadmap and technologies applied in 53 key programmes and projects worth 2,200 billion VND in total.

Besides, the city has cooperated with such many reputable businesses as VNPT, FPT, Viettel, VietinBank, SeaBank, and BRG Group to implement the project.

Deputy Minister of Information and Communications Phan Tam highly appreciated Da Nang for being one of the pioneering localities in Viet Nam to start the smart city building project.

He also pledged that his agency would work closely with localities nationwide to research and deploy the most effective solutions in the development of sustainable and smart cities.

Under the Summit’ agenda, there were 4 seminars on operating smart cities, namely operating a smart city based on data analysis (data-driven); digital government and finance for smart cities; infrastructure & technology for smart cities; and applications for smart cities.

Within the framework of the Summit, the Leaders’ Talk was jointly held by the Organising Committee, the World Smart Sustainable Cities Organization (WeGO) and the Asian-Oceanian Computing Industry Organization (ASOCIO).

The Smart City Summit is an annual international event held to promote cooperation, share visions, strategies and experience in building smart cities in regional countries, and provide a venue for CEOs and experts to offer solutions for the management, planning, and development of smart cities based on new technology platforms such as IoT, big data, AI, and SMAC.