The central city of Da Nang and the World Bank (WB) will be boosting cooperation in building digital database management as a crucial way towards full digitalisation and becoming a ‘smart’ city.
Vice Chairman of the municipal People’s Committee Ho Ky Minh asked the WB to support them in the use of digital database solutions for communities and businesses, during a working session.
Minh said Da Nang is operating 1,200 open data sources and shared data units and plans to bring in smart applications and platforms for all users in the city.
"The city identified being data centric as a key part in the digitalisation process in terms of digital government, the digital economy and digital society in forming the ‘smart’ city goal", Minh said.
"Da Nang has introduced an overall design of ‘smart’ city in 2018 after applications of e-Government in 2015, digital data use in 2019 and the debut of Intelligence Operation Centre (IOC) in 2023."
Da Nang launched an e-government system in 2014, making the IT infrastructure available for smart connections in air control, water management, rubbish collections and meteorology, earthquake and tsunami warnings, floods and erosion and sewage management systems.
Databases in land management, residential registration, business, public service, traffic, water and air quality monitoring and ambulance tracking system, were also available for use.
But he said that the city’s digitalisation process has been challenging, specifically when up against legal framework barriers, policy and human resources, which all need support and experience from the WB.
Kim Leng Tan, an expert from the WB, said the benefit from digital data management will result from the city’s data architecture and collective data sources in improving effectiveness and control.
He said the management of data will also help create better and safer systems in line with legal regulations.
Da Nang, in cooperation with Viettel and FPT is currently undergoing a full digital transformation in economy, education, healthcare, tourism, trade and industry, agriculture and e-Government.
The city has been accelerating the digitalisation process and aims to go on the list of ASEAN smart cities by 2030.
The WB has funded many key infrastructure projects in Da Nang over the past two decades, most recently it gave a 100 million USD investment to Da Nang University to improve infrastructure, increase financial support and improve management capacity.