Hanoi and the attraction of smart city

Heading to smart healthcare and smart transportation
Speaking at the “US-Vietnam, Smart Cities Workshop” on June 22,   Chairman Nguyen Duc Chung outlined the   visions and plans to build  Hanoi into a smart city.

Overview of US-Vietnam Smart Cities Workshop on June 22

According the Chairman Nguyen Duc Chung, entering the new development phase, Hanoi has encountered  with new  challenges, including demographic growth and unequal demographic distribution, pollution, water treatment, traffic jam, renewable energy development. Therefore, to develop sustainably, Hanoi government sets the target to turn the capital city into a “Green-Cultural-Friendly-Modern” urban area, with  identity, dynamism and high competitiveness in the region and the world, creating opportunities for investment.
Based on such visions and plans, Hanoi identifies the measures to build a smart city, including developing electronic government to facilitate people connect and communicate with the government, building infrastructure foundation for smart city with the Center of Concentrated Monitoring and Management, Internet of Things, establishing the concentrated center for  technological transfer and start-up business incubators.
In 2017, Hanoi will focus on improving essential areas, developing  smart applications in healthcare, transportation, tourism and energy.
Hanoi’s abundant potentials
Based on the current situation,  Hanoi is focusing to develop smart city via electronic government, transportation, education, healthcare and environment, which have earned initial outcomes. At the moment, Hanoi has completed a population database for more than 7,5 million Hanoians and use the data effectively to create apps and  services for residents and enterprises in the capital city as well as for the city’s administration. The Hanoi Urban Transport Management and Operation Center was launched with more than 500 on-road-cameras to monitor key routes; the city’s traffic light system covers in 179 traffic nodes. Hanoi also carries out route management app for over 100 bus lines and the operation of 1.600 buses and pilots iParking app at 17 sites in 2 streets with 286 parking lot and will apply this model in a  broader scale. According to David Pickeral – Smart city Specialist of Business Council for International Understanding (BCIU), there are plenty of potentials to develop smart city in Hanoi. The most important thing is the people’s support and willing to collaborate with government to make Hanoi a smart city. Besides, as David Pickeral put it,  the Hanoi leaders are very resolute and they don’t hesitate to accept new ideas.  The barrier for Hanoi to become a smart city is  that Hanoi is a very old city with old infrastructure. “However, I think there is a lot of potentials for Hanoi and Vietnam in general to develop smart cities”, David Pickeral said.
Whereas, Setiaji – Head of Jakarta Smart City Management (Indonesia), thought that Indonesia and Vietnam shared many similarities concerning geographical terrain. From Jakarta experience in building smart city, Setiaji stressed on the importance of integration between central government and local agencies when building database for the city. According to him, Hanoi should concentrate on improving the traffic safety.
On the same day, Chairman of Hanoi’s People Committee Nguyen Duc Chung met with U.S Ambassador to Vietnam Ted Osius. The two sides discussed  collaboration to develop smart city. According to the US Ambassador, the attendance of Chairman Chung expresses the commitment of Hanoi in building  smart city. Chairman Chung’s presentation outlined the potentials as well as opportunities of Hanoi, Ted Osius said. He added that, U.S experts will actively support to nurture Hanoi’s ideas and carry out Hanoi’s vision on developing smart city.