IDC has revealed the winners in its annual Smart City Asia-Pacific Awards (SCAPA), which this year were announced in a virtual event.

Nineteen smart city projects across Asia-Pacific excluding Japan were recognised across 14 functional e-service categories.

Dominant themes

Gerald Wang, head of public sector at IDC Asia-Pacific, said that further automation of city operations, creating better accessibility to digital ecosystems and tools for residents, and enhanced government services, all dominate the “transformation themes” of smart city projects in SCAPA 2020.

He added: “This year, many Asia Pacific Smart City projects focused on agile public policies and initiatives for social inclusivity, intuitive and innovative city services, sustainable critical infrastructure revolutions and global engagements.”

“With the direct impact of Covid-19 halting day-to-day activities to the bare essential services, the race to digital for socioeconomic resiliency and survivability is much more exigent than ever before”

IDC noted that the current global Covid-19 pandemic further strengthened cities’ resolve to create cutting edge “live, learn, work and play” digital ecosystems.

Wang continued: “With the direct impact of Covid-19 halting day-to-day activities to the bare essential services, the race to digital for socioeconomic resiliency and survivability is much more exigent than ever before.

“City governments would do well to accelerate their digitalisation plans and learn swiftly from the investments and innovative projects of our SCAPA 2020 winners.”

Smart city 2020 winners

All winners were decided based on IDC analysts’ benchmarking, public voting, and judging from an international advisory council. The winning cities and projects in their respective categories are:

• Administration: Haikou City Brain by Haikou, Hainan (China)
• Civic engagement: New Taipei City’s Smart Community App 2.0 by New Taipei City (Taiwan), and Perth Smart Cities Collaboration by City of Perth, Western Australia (Australia)
• Digital equity and accessibility: Desa Digital/Digital Village by West Java Government (Indonesia)
• Economic development, tourism, arts, libraries, culture, and open spaces: Intelligent Tourism through Digital Currencies and Blockchain Technologies by Malacca (Malaysia)
• Education: Omni Smart Education in Taipei by Taipei (Taiwan), and Wenchang Smart Education Initiative by Wenchang, Hainan Province (China)
• Public health and social services: Participatory Care and Telemedicine by Kaohsiung City, Pingtung County and Penghu County (Taiwan)
• Public safety – disaster response/emergency management: EQRNet – Earthquake Response Management by Christchurch City Council (New Zealand)
• Public safety – smart policing: Crime-Free City Service Platform by Sejong Metropolitan Autonomous City (South Korea)
• Smart building/smart tech parks: Smart Lighting for Public Housing Estates by Singapore
• Smart water: Tainan Smart Flood Prevention Network Construction Plan by Tainan (Taiwan), and Underground Antenna and Excavation Sensing Device by Korea District Heating Corp (South Korea)
• Sustainable infrastructure: Energy Data for Smart Decision Making by New South Wales (Australia), and Smart Poles for a Sustainable & Scalable Smart City by New Delhi (India)
• Transportation – connected and autonomous vehicles, public transit, ride-hailing/ride-sharing: On-Demand Autonomous Buses by Sentosa (Singapore)
• Transportation – transportation infrastructure: Minor Accident Remote Handling System by Shenzhen (China)
• Urban planning and land use: Development of a Common Spatial Data Infrastructure by Hong Kong, and Smart Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Enhanced or SUAVE by Singapore.

You might also like:

• See all of our coronavirus coverage
• IDC names "best and brightest" North American smart city projects
• Asia-Pacific smart city project winners named