Taiwan is the big winner in the 2019 IDC Smart City Asia Pacific Awards, claiming four first-place prizes in the 12-category competition, according to organizer U.S.-headquartered International Data Corp. July 9.
Among the winning projects were two Taipei City Government initiatives—Crossing Learning Barriers: Omni Smart Education and Transportation 2.0: Artificial Intelligence Driven Transportation Management. These topped the education and transport infrastructure categories, respectively.
Under the smart education plan, Taipei is working to enhance information and communication technology deployment in elementary and high schools. ICT also lies at the heart of its transportation project, which uses AI to analyze traffic surveillance data and can conduct automatic number-plate recognition while providing information on real-time parking availability.
Joining the successful schemes from the capital, Taoyuan City Government’s civic participation initiative to improve its citizen card took gold in the digital equity and accessibility classification. An integrated emergency data platform created by New Taipei City Government also triumphed in the disaster response and emergency management category.
Launched in 2015, the Taoyuan Citizen Card can be used by residents for numerous tasks within the northern metropolis, such as purchasing fares on public transport and tracking exercise facility usage. To boost civic involvement, the city government hosted workshops and held online voting last year before generating proposals to expand card functionality.
New Taipei’s integrated disaster prediction and response platform was launched in 2018. The system can provide weather forecasts, flood predictions and real-time crisis mapping, helping officials more effectively plan and deploy response measures.
Established in 2015, the SCAPA recognize public and private organizations that excel across such categories as administration, civic engagement, public health and urban planning. This year’s winners were selected based on company analyst benchmarking, public voting and expert judging, according to IDC. (CPY-E)
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