Smart cities to shape Vietnam’s future

He made the comment at a recent conference in Hanoi assessing the future of cities in Vietnam utilizing smart city or alternative information technology (IT) solutions for monitoring and managing municipality resources.

He said he fully realizes the phrase ‘smart city’ has become a buzzword as the smart label has been attached to all sorts of technology such as ’smart phones’  ‘smart homes’ and ‘smart classrooms’.

Though many believe the smart city label is merely empty hype, it should be understood within the proper context.

Governmental agencies throughout Vietnam have in the past been relatively successful in using IT applications in a wide variety of areas and there is no reason to believe they would not be just as effective utilizing smart city IT solutions.

Nhan said he is also well aware that most critics say smart city projects have been conceived top down, with the application as a starting point so they don’t really assess and address the specific problems of any particular municipality.

Urban problems clearly aren’t caused by technology nor will they be resolved by technology and no one in the government is confused by the sales pitch of IT company sales personnel, said Nhan.

Ultimately political will, administrative skill and participation of citizens are the necessary ingredients to solving the ailments of urban Vietnam and building prosperous cities.

But that is not to say IT technology can’t be beneficial.

Before – smart cities technology – can be developed the country first needs to resolve a few issues related to population growth and environmental issues along with health, traffic and housing hurdles, Nhan underscored.

Factors working in the nation’s favour are the fact that the percentage of people using the internet was 43.8% last year, 9% higher than the Asian average and 1.6% higher than the world's level.

It’s a somewhat nebulous point but it does show that people in the country are relatively computer literate and receptive to the use of advanced technologies in their everyday lives.

The country has also used IT to manage governmental and social affairs rather extensively, without any significant problems, so though smart cities is no panacea he feel’s comfortable it would be a step in the right direction.

Many other countries around the globe have made their cities ‘smart’ including the Republic of Korea (RoK) and many of the European Union (EU) countries so the technology does have a proven track record.

Most notably, last year Singapore and India unveiled they would utilize the smart cities solutions and representatives from both nations have said they stand ready to share their experiences.

As well representatives from Japan and the US have pledged their support to Vietnam— so it appears to be the inevitable path that we as a nation will take.