Shaping the future of Asian cities with ICT

By Eden Estopace | Jan 2, 2012

World reports published in 2011 couldn't have shown better the role of information and communications technologies (ICT) in the success of Asia's top economies.

Singapore topped the World Economic Report's Global Competitive Index 2011-2012, overtaking Switzerland and zooming in to second spot in the new global ranking. An ITU report featuring an ICT Development Index (IDI) ranked South Korea as the world's most advanced ICT economy. Meanwhile, Singapore and Hong Kong were recognized as the top two places in the world for doing business by a World Bank report.

In a report entitled "Asia 2050: Realizing the Asian Century" published in March 2011, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) confirmed that Asia's march to prosperity will be led by its top seven economies, which has a combined total population of 3.1 billion or 78 percent of Asia's total population, and GDP of $14.2 trillion or 87 percent of Asia's total in 2010.

"The Asian Century scenario extends Asia’s past success into the future, putting it on the cusp of a historic transformation. It assumes that Asian economies can maintain their momentum for another 40 years and adapt to the shifting global economic and technological environment by continually recreating their comparative advantages," the report said.

However, Microsoft founder Bill Gates' famous quote still ring true in large swaths of this very dynamic region that is also still very much hounded by underdevelopment issues: "The world is getting better but it is not getting better fast enough and it's not getting better for everyone."

While the impact of technology is already immense in the Asia-Pacific, opportunity is much larger for doing more in the coming years as advancement in IT also reach unprecedented levels and governments start to look to ICT to drive innovations and growth.

"Asia is a hugely diverse region. It has more than a thousand languages, about 3.5 billion people, and seven different time zones. By 2015 half of the Internet users of the world will be from Asia-Pacific," said Clair Deevy, Citizenship Lead, Asia-Pacific, Microsoft, at the opening of the Accelerating Asia-Pacific Conference held in Kuala Lumpur last month.

Microsoft alone has 17 in 20 countries in the Asia-Pacific, employing 11,000 employees and supporting 45,000 partners.

"We actually look the impact we can make helping local governments making people lives better, and making cities better places to live in," said Eric Basha, Government Industry Managing Director, Worldwide Public Sector Group, Microsoft Corporation.

Smarter technologies, smarter cities

Long before the smart cities concept entered the lexicon of urban planners, science fiction had already visualized the age of technology and a connected world where efficiency and automation rules. Not that the world is anywhere the fictional reality of flying cars and everyday trips to outer space, but in recent years many governments have built urban megalopolises powered by digital architectures and running on ubiquitous computing infrastructure with far simpler and more practical goals: improving quality of life for citizens, creating jobs and high-value industries to power the economy, and building a sustainable future.

"Typically, the industry definition of smart city revolves around transportation and the environment.  Smart buildings, smart traffic systems that control traffic flow, control congestion, taxes and parking systems are very important to the quality of life. But it's not just about the traffic and energy or air quality. If you feel safe in your community, if your kids can go to school, you have access to quality healthcare and good jobs, those are important as well as community, recreation and culture. It's not just this notion of technology and making intelligent infrastructures. It's about the quality of life," said Basha.

Fundamental and core to this belief, added Lynne Stockstad, General Manager, Worldwide Public Sector, Microsoft Corporation, is the role of technology and innovation in helping the world to be a better place.  

In Malaysia, she cited an application done by a PhD student that aids health field workers in on-the-spot diagnosis of malaria. The application comes with a small telescope attached to a mobile phone that can be used for analyzing blood samples of people possibly afflicted with the disease. The health workers can upload the information on the Web so other professionals around the world can help in the diagnosis, or upload the data into a registry so experts may be able to track the population activity.