Regarding Smart Cities, different countries define their own goals and objectives for their smart cities, their pain points to address and various initiatives required to improved existing services or to provide new services to the citizens in the various areas of life such as safety, security, health, transportation, housing, flood management, parking, metering, traffic management, tourism, recreation, etc.
Those services can be improved and enhanced by exploiting the power of the latest technological tools and systems such as 5G telecommunication technology, artificial intelligence, Fintech, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Big Data, Open data, smart traffic lights, smart metering, smart parking, smart surveillance, etc.
Smart City Application / Services
Those initiatives are basically what the Sarawak Government is currently planning to undertake and some of those initiatives have already been executed. The initiatives that have been executed include the implementations of;
- A single online identify adopted by 290k Sarawakians to access and use online services
- An e-wallet facility used by 150k consumers as well as 10k merchants and has facilitated over RM110 million sales and purchase transactions to date
- Regulation regarding e-sports service providers
- Digital government solutions
- A Smart Traffic Light system to reduce travel time by 30% by 2022
- A Smart Flood Management and Response system using over 300 telemetry stations to provide timely information to relevant government agencies as well as early warnings to citizens
- A tourism portal and mobile apps to improve tourists’ experiences and heritage preservation through smart technologies such as dynamic portals, virtual reality and augmented reality.
The Sarawak Government is currently developing the Sarawak Integrated Operation Centre (SIOC) and CCTV platform for consolidation of information for the purpose of monitoring and managing disasters, safety, security and development in
Sarawak.
Also, the Sarawak Government is in the process of planning and collaboration with Smart City Consultants and Experts for developing a holistic “Kuching Smart City Master Plan” to make Sarawak a model Smart City.