Ancient town gets smart makeover

If she happens to forget to close her front door, the sensors will also send notifications to both her children and the nurses.

"I have high blood pressure and feel dizzy when my blood pressure is really high. If I press the button on the wristband when I felt dizzy, the nurses come to my home within five minutes," she says.

Yang is among the first group of 1,953 senior citizens in Wuzhen who enjoy the benefits brought by the introduction of the Internet.

Smart town

Since last year's World Internet Conference, Wuzhen has attached great importance to making the town a real "smart" town. Smart senior care is one of the major projects.

Tao says that, with the Internet senior care project, more people can enjoy services at home.

"The advantage of the Internet senior-care system is that we can use the available human resources to take care of senior citizens efficiently."

Tao says that under the current system, 22 workers attend to more than 1,900 senior citizens in the town.

"Our plan is to make the project cover all 15,000 senior citizens in the town before next year's World Internet Conference," he says.

In addition to the healthcare system, Wuzhen also developed an online-information system that enables residents to report problems via WeChat.

The system also collects basic information of every household and puts it into QR codes for local civil servants to better carry out their duties.

Tao says that further development of the smart town will continue at a high speed.

"Since Wuzhen has become the permanent venue for the World Internet Conference, the Internet will play an even more important role in Wuzhen," he says.