A great opportunity for Binh Duong to develop smart city

On 26 Oct, the world’s Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) announced the list of 21 cities, regions honored as cities that have ideal smart city development strategies in the world (Smart 21). Binh Duong was officially voted as one of these 21 cities in 2019 and officially is the first locality of Vietnam becoming a member of ICF.

Smart community, development cooperation

ICF is based in New York (USA). ICF is a global network connecting more than 180 cities from all over the world and was recognized as intelligent community for socio-economic development, exchanging expertise and experience to push the advancement. ICF studies the criteria from which to build a smart framework for communities to develop prosperity. Currently, ICF has the participation of countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Russia...

Binh Duong is building a smart city with the center is Binh Duong New City.  

According to the plan, in June 2019, ICF will select one of its member cities or provinces to elect as the smart community of 2019. Smart 21 represents the best economic, cultural and social development models in the digital age, reaching out to the technological center of smart city movement; these cities or provinces are on the path from smart to intelligent. In the next phase of the program, Smart 21 will answer detailed questionnaires to provide information about these communities. Then, seven provinces and cities will be selected into the top 7 of the 2019 smart communities on February 11, 2019 at Laval University (Quebec, Canada); One of the top seven provinces and cities will be chosen as the smartest community of the year on February 13, 2019 at awards gala of the 2019 ICF Global Summit held in New York City.

ICF co-founder Louis Zacharilla said each continent had representatives in the smart communities’ list this year. This is great because ICF's selection approach is applicable to any locality that is transforming from technology into a truly adaptive and learning community. These are the places that are planned for changes and a long-term success.

Binh Duong honorably joins Smart 21

Binh Duong was officially voted as one of the 21 cities and regions that have the world's ideal smart city development strategy in 2019 and is the first locality of Vietnam to officially become a member of ICF. This result helps Binh Duong establish strong international relations with the smart community of the world to exchange information, experiences and attract talented people to work in Binh Duong.

In recent years, with the help of the government of Eindhoven City (the Netherlands), Brainport Group (the Netherlands) and Becamex IDC (Binh Duong) has gone through many seminars, field trips, suggestions from experts. By the end of 2016, Binh Duong province approved the Binh Duong Smart City Project with the center is Binh Duong New City. On November 21, 2016, Binh Duong Provincial People's Committee approved Binh Duong strategic plan till 2021 (Binh Duong Navigator 2021), which is the focus of Binh Duong Smart City Project with the "triple helix" model. This is a program to help Binh Duong rapidly develop in many fields, from which the transition from traditional manufacturing to high-tech production and services with high levels of gray matter, less labor-intensive, increasing added values for the local economy.

The smart city project structure is a prerequisite to accelerate the implementation of Binh Duong Smart City Project. This brings better quality to people’s lives and better jobs for the people in the province, helping Binh Duong province to soon join ICF.

Mary Ann Schreurs, Deputy Mayor of Eindhoven City, said that 20 years ago Eindhoven had had a similar start to Binh Duong. At that time, Eindhoven was just a small and traditional industrial developing area, without airports or seaports. After a continuous effort and development, Eindhoven has now become one of the world's smartest city, topping the ICF rankings. Binh Duong is a province located in the southern key economic zone and currently has many similarities with Eindhoven City, because of the large business community, many vocational training institutions and many universities. Binh Duong has a working relationship with many countries in the world with nearly 20,000 foreigners living and working here, creating economic potential, technology, experience and professional working style... for the province.

It can be seen that building a smart city is a new objective, not unprecedented in Vietnam. To reach and accelerate the smart city construction process, in recent years, Binh Duong Smart City’s Steering Board has continuously connected and expanded its cooperation with many provinces, cities, companies, institutes and universities in the world. For instance, Eindhoven City, this cooperation relation between this city and Binh Duong is increasingly tight, close and in many ways.

Reported by Phuong Le – Translated by Ngoc Huynh

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