Building a smart city starts with cross-domain integration and innovation
We can already see Tesla electric vehicles on the busy streets of Taipei, and in early July, Taiwan’s first driverless autonomous minibus officially hit the road on the National Taiwan University campus. The advent of these high-tech products not only means the rapid changes in the mobile era, but also highlights the impact and benefits of the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and even big data on people’s lives. Therefore, cross-sector integrated planning becomes increasingly important for urban development.
According to the definition of Wikipedia, smart city (opens in a new tab) is the next generation of information technology support and the next generation innovation of the knowledge society ( Urban form under the environment of Innovation 2.0) emphasizes that smart cities are not only the application of new generation information technologies such as the Internet of Things and cloud computing, but more importantly, through the application of the Innovation 2.0 methodology for a knowledge society, they build an urban sustainable innovation ecosystem characterized by user innovation, open innovation, mass innovation, and collaborative innovation.
How to build a smart city that combines technology and humanity is a top priority for leaders in the 21st century. In view of this, National Taiwan University’s Executive Master’s Program in Cross-Field Integration and Innovation (opens in a new tab) specially held the “Smart City - Cross-Field Integration and Innovation Forum” on August 12 at the cafe on the second floor of Tiancheng Cultural Hotel in Taichung, and invited several students and alumni who have already invested in related fields to come and share.
Technological services and innovation for smart life
This forum kicked off with a speech by the CEO of Huanghui Technology Zhang Zhiqiang (opens in a new tab). He shared the topic of “Technological Services and Innovation for Smart Life” and shared with everyone how to make good use of the power of information technology to improve the quality of life.
CEO Zhang introduced to everyone a set of online service platforms called IFTTT (IF This Then That), which can determine whether to execute the next command based on different conditions on other platforms. To give a simple example, if the weather report predicts rain tomorrow, please remember to remind me today.
IFTTT can not only be used on personal computers, but now it can also be used on mobile devices (https://www.playpcesor.com/2014/04/ifttt-android-ios.html (opens in a new tab)). The iPhone, iPad and Android versions of IFTTT have been successively launched, allowing online services to trigger reactions on mobile devices around us. In this way, it will help connect technology and life.
Linden Tibbets, the founder and CEO of IFTTT, once cleverly described his product as “digital tape (opens in a new tab)”, which means that it can be used to stick two services together. Now IFTTT has entered the field of the Internet of Things and opened third-party App (opens in a new tab) for connection.
CEO Zhang said that in the process of life gradually developing from individuals to groups and families, people are able to use experience to connect the entire city, and with the help of information and communication technology, they can understand, analyze, and finally be quenched into wisdom. As long as we use our imagination and innovation, we can make our lives more beautiful!
Smart Home and Community Management
The next person to appear was the chairman of Zongya Information Industry Li Shunde (opens in a new tab). He is also an alumnus of the 104th grade of the National Taiwan University Institute of Technology Interdisciplinary Special Class (opens in a new tab). He talks about “smart cities and smart homes” from a pragmatic perspective based on his many years of in-depth industry experience.
Chairman Li pointed out that ideal smart home integrated services must give priority to safety and comfort, so that consumers can have a good experience. From traditional switches to remote controls, and then to humanized automatic sensor control, most operations of smart home control can now be completed through smartphones or tablets.
When building a smart city, the first priority is social security and community management. Chairman Li also called on industry players to think about how to make these smart functions add value to people’s lives without causing a burden on ordinary families. Looking to the future, Zongya Group will continue to implement the concept of “livable”, starting from smart home living, and provide more diversified integrated services and solutions.
Sharing economy and intelligent rotation
The finale was shared by Huang Jinjin, the functional manager of Hong Kong Group, and the topic was “Competition, Sharing, and Intelligent Rotation in the Future.” Huang Ji Nengchang started from the “sharing economy” that has been popular in recent years, and mentioned the “sharing bicycle chaos” in mainland China (https://news.ftv.com.tw/news/detail/2017831I10M1 (opens in a new tab)).
Huang Ji Neng Changgen discussed the development history, business model and other aspects, and compared the similarities and differences between dockless shared bicycles oBike (opens in a new tab) and YouBike (opens in a new tab) for the guests. He also analyzed the advantages and disadvantages of the two and why Giant still adheres to the existing strategy. There is no doubt that this is also closely related to the transportation ecosystem.
The Taipei City Government has hosted the 2016 Global Bicycle City Conference (opens in a new tab) (Velo-city Global 2016), hoping to bring together experience and exchange discussions from various countries to outline the possibility of urban “re-evolution”. The emergence of shared bicycles is indeed a convenient opportunity, but if the city is to evolve further, more supporting measures are needed.
Huang Ji Neng also mentioned that “smart sharing” is an ideal state, and the current development is only in its basic prototype, which requires not only innovative thinking, but also the determination to change. And all of this still depends on everyone’s efforts!
★ Photo Credit: Photographed by Vista
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Vista Cheng speaks and runs workshops on AI workflows, writing and content systems for companies, schools and public agencies.
