Hong Kong's smart city drive needs both policies and talents

New technology is having an ever greater impact on our daily lives. Technology innovation is a crucial source of growth for almost all economies. Hong Kong is definitely trying to develop this area as well, with the goal of building a smart city and using new technology to improve people's lives and city management. To that end, the government's consultant published the Smart Hong Kong Consultancy Study Report recently, which specified three policy goals: increasing the public's ability to use digital platforms, improving quality of life and participation of the elderly, and combating the challenges of a growing aging population.

Obviously, the recommendations of a consultancy report are not necessarily parts of a government policy, but from a broad perspective, these policy goals do make sense. Just that it is not easy to implement these projects since many legal, technical and psychological obstacles have yet to be overcome. Meanwhile, smart city is a relatively new concept; no major city in the world has yet to successfully apply it on a large scale so there is no precedent for us to follow. Without being thoroughly tested and certified, it is difficult to convince the government to accept the new technology. After all, there is always an inherent risk of failure that few wish to take. Moreover, implementing smart city requires the cooperation of many departments; there needs to be a high-level mechanism for division of labor and coordinating workloads. The Innovation and Technology Bureau does not have the authority to command others while it is yet to be seen whether the top echelons of the administration are determined to launch the smart city initiatives.

For many of the recommendations on transportation, healthcare and elderly services, the technology required already exists on paper but not in practice. In regard to healthcare, if there were really smart features installed in hospitals to enable better patient monitoring or even remote medical consultation, it would involve major revision to the Medical Registration Ordinance and the Pharmacy and Poisons Ordinance and many other ordinances which affect many different types of medical professionals. Needless to say, it is an extremely complicated and difficult process. On elderly services, remote consultation and health monitoring would definitely greatly help alleviate the labor shortage of elderly homes. In addition to legal problems, the technology required is still in a preliminary stage and the cost of investing in these complex information technology system and equipment will likely be prohibitive to most privately funded elderly homes.

Financial technology, or fintech, is now one of those catchy buzzwords that frequently appear on media. Hong Kong being a global financial center, many comment that Hong Kong is not advancing fast enough and have yet to massively employ electronic payment, crowd-funding, blockchain and other revolutionary technologies. The most commonly used example of these critics is that most of us are still using our Octopus card, something that is 20 years old. However, I believe that new technology is here to serve the people and improve our lives; we should not update this technology for the sake of updating it. The Octopus card has been extremely convenient and secure while mobile payment via smartphone is not necessarily much better. As such, why insist on abandoning the Octopus card? This specific example aside, financial technology in general is a double-edged sword. Indeed, it enables a more efficient matching between lenders and borrowers as well as more open and cheaper financial transactions. Nonetheless, experiences around the world have demonstrated that without proper regulations and supervisions, these new technologies can be easily exploited by criminals and many small investors have already fallen victim to their scams.

Surely, many countries and cities around the world want to be a technology hub. However, Hong Kong has a unique advantage under "one country, two systems". Under the Greater Bay Area masterplan, Hong Kong should cooperate more with the region and exploit our relative strengths. The region would benefit from enhanced movement of talents, goods, capitals and information. There are already many new startups in Hong Kong and some overseas talents have chosen this place as their base of operations. Although the failure rate of startups is usually high, there are already a few local success stories. I am sure that there are many more to come, provided that there are continuously improved policies and environments that facilitate their development.

With the emergence of the digital revolution and many disruptive technologies, our economies face many challenges. In order to successfully implement a smart city, there needs to be supporting policies and suitable talents. Moreover, it would no doubt severely affect traditional economic sectors. There is simply no easy way to do it.

(HK Edition 11/23/2017 page8)