Seminar | Government urged to foster sustainable development

Presented this week, Macau’s first ever MSAR five-year plan aims at building a “smart city.” But what does that exactly mean? Experts from Hong Kong, Shanghai, Barcelona and London debated the concept yesterday during a seminar organized by the Science and Technology Development Fund. On the sidelines of the event which took place at the Macau Science Center, the president of the fund, Frederico Ma, said that the region’s development should feature “smart tourism, smart traffic, smart government and smart medicine.”
According to some of the experts, developing a “smart city” could involve big data analysis – i.e. data sets that are analyzed computationally to assess patterns and trends, especially those relating to human behavior and communication – by government departments. However, Frederico Ma noted that authorities are concerned that this involves rules and regulations related to privacy.
The president claimed that open data is the backbone of the construction of a smart city and stressed that as technology develops, data assessment could release “anonymous data.”
“So we can know the flow of the people but not identify them. […] We just want the quantity,” he explains.
Representing London’s Urban DNA Solutions, Graham Colclough said that a smart city should be described as one that dramatically increases the pace at which it improves its sustainability and resilience.
“It should improve how it engages in society, how it applies collaborative leadership methods, how it works across disciplines and city systems,” Mr Colclough stated, “in order to transform services and quality of life to those involved in the city.”
Mr Ma admitted that there is still no master plan for the smart city development, but he did say he may cooperate with institutions in Macau to develop a feasibility study in the second half of the year.
The plan will not only focus on the infrastructure of the city but will pursue the development of the public’s living standards.
“We need to focus on the people, the ‘smart citizen.’ How could we also serve the best purpose for them and not only on infrastructure?” he asked.
Cheng Dazhang, from Tongji University in Shanghai, discussed the topic of “Smart Mobility,” claiming that a smart city will take advantage of technology to solve problems including transportation.
“We don’t only need to use information technology, but we also need each individual’s intelligence,” he insisted. Staff reporter