IDC Asia-Pacific has chosen 57 finalists from more than 170 entries in the 2019 Smart City Asia Pacific Awards for public voting.

The annual awards seek to identify, benchmark and gather public opinion through voting on the best projects each year across 12 functional smart city strategic domains: administration; civic engagement; digital equity and accessibility; economic development, tourism, arts, libraries, culture, open spaces; education; public health and social services; public safety; smart buildings; smart water, sustainable infrastructure; transportation; and urban planning and land use.

Quang Trung Software City is participating in the Administration category with its QTSC Integrated Operation Center solution (QTSC IOC).

It has been nominated by IDC experts and is the sole representative from Southeast Asia to compete with four other projects from China and Korea in global online voting.

IDC has invited the public to vote at www.idc.com/ap/smartcities until May 28.

People who participate in the voting stand a chance to win a Samsung Galaxy S10+ in an electronic draw to be held after the Asia/Pacific winners are announced.

Gerald Wang, head of public sector, said: “Overall, in comparison with other entries in the Administration category, the QTSC submission stood out with the three other finalists. We benchmarked the project across their ‘strategic priorities’, ‘e-services maturity’ and ‘use of innovative technologies’.

“This constitutes a 50 per cent weightage in the voting. The next stages of evaluation are the public voting and advisory council votes.”

Lam Nguyen Hai Long, CEO of QTSC, said: “QTSC IOC … is a project designed and built by QTSC and partners. It aims to improve the quality of administrative activities in operating the first and largest software urban area in Viet Nam since 2016.

“QTSC is honoured to be shortlisted among the finalists. We hope everyone will vote for Quang Trung Software City, the sole representative of Vietnam and Southeast Asia in this prestigious award category.”

After the IDC analysts’ benchmarking, which has a 50 per cent weight, the entries go through a public vote (25 per cent) and evaluation by an International Advisory Council (25 per cent).

The winners will be announced next July and be pitted against other regional winners in IDC’s smart city competitions around the world for the opportunity to be named the global IDC smart city champions in the 12 categories. — VNS