- City Managers Explore Smart Future at 2019 Shenzhen Smart City Forum with 
International Friendship Cities 

The 2019 Shenzhen Smart City Forum with International Friendship Cities opened 
on Tuesday with the theme "ushering in a bright future for smart cities". The 
forum brings together Shenzhen officials, Huawei executives and smart city 
experts, UN-Habitat experts and scholars, delegates from cities around the 
world with smart city experience, as well as high-tech enterprises to share 
their latest development concepts and practices. The forum aims to promote 
communication and cooperation in building smart, digital cities.

Global City Leaders Gather in Shenzhen to Explore the Future Together

Ai Xuefeng, Deputy Mayor of Shenzhen, hosted the opening ceremony with Wang 
Weizhong, Secretary of the CPC Shenzhen Municipal Committee, Xie Yuan, Deputy 
Chair of the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign 
Countries, and Frank Ross, Lord Provost of Edinburgh speaking at the forum's 
opening. Guest speakers included Guo Ping, Rotating Chairman of Huawei; Ugo 
Valenti, CEO of Smart City Expo World Congress; and Rui Costa dos Santos, 
Governor of the State of Bahia, Brazil.

Wang Weizhong, Secretary of the CPC Shenzhen Municipal Committee, delivered a 
welcome speech: "This year witnesses the 70th anniversary of People's Republic 
of China, and also 40 years since the establishment of Shenzhen city. Shenzhen 
reflects the historical achievements China has made, serving as a window to 
display China to the world. We hope to make more friends with an open heart 
taking the opportunity of this forum, and together contribute wisdom and power 
for a common human community."

"Huawei is dedicated to building a smart city digital foundation that enables 
integrating, exploring, analyzing, and sharing data, by using ubiquitous 
connectivity, a digital platform, and pervasive intelligence," said Guo Ping in 
a speech entitled 'Building a Maslow Model for Smart Cities'. "More 
importantly, we develop a digital brain for cities in hand with application 
partners, building a common ecosystem with mutual advantages. This brain will 
provide advanced ways to help cities make informed development decisions and 
will allow e-government, transportation, and policing domains to go digital. In 
doing so, we hope to build smart cities featuring smart administration, more 
benefits for residents, and prosperous industry development."

In his speech 'A New World of Smart Cities', Ugo Valenti said: "Innovative 
technologies, including 5G, IoT, AI, and cloud, are disruptively renovating how 
cities are governed and managed. By nurturing Public-Private-People 
Partnerships, a co-creation model among government, corporations, and citizens, 
smart cities will facilitate a more open decision-making process, and bring a 
people-centric new world."

High-end Digital Economy Dialogue, Empowering Development with Top-level Design

The highlight of the opening ceremony was a high-end dialogue. It attracted 
attendees from government departments, enterprises, and the academic community. 
The panel explored emerging technologies, how to construct big-data-based city 
ICT infrastructure to safeguard public security and order, and how to enhance 
modern city governance, public welfare, and economy by leveraging digital 
services and a disruptive digital brain. The result will be better smart cities 
with active smart economies.

"The usage of digital technology has become one of the criteria to assess a 
city's intelligence level. Future smart cities will have five new 
infrastructural platforms, namely cloud, IoT, data lake, AI, and a video 
surveillance network. These five platforms will form a foundation for us to 
achieve ubiquitous connectivity, realize pervasive intelligence, and streamline 
heterogeneous ICT systems. Huawei uses its cloud as the basis to integrate 
various new ICT technologies, such as AI, IoT, big data, converged 
communications, video, and GIS, to build a comprehensive digital platform," 
said Yan Lida, President of Huawei Enterprise BG.

"This platform provides technical enablement for government and enterprise 
customers, helping them easily cope with complicated technical issues. In 
addition, Huawei built 12 OpenLabs around the globe to conduct 
customer-oriented joint innovation with partners. Building a smart city is a 
long and constantly evolving process. Based on Huawei's digital platform, 
cities will be like organic life. New applications will emerge and grow through 
iteration, and eventually achieve overall prosperity," continued Yan Lida.

"The United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals include one on 
sustainable cities and communities. We hope to drive the realization of SDG 
through smart city endeavors with confidence. We are to face the challenge from 
smart city construction, but also embrace its unlimited potential. From the 
perspective of the UN, international cooperation is significant. We see a very 
good platform here today for cities to share experience," said Atsushi 
Koresawa, Director for UN-Habitat Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific.

This event is hosted by Shenzhen Municipal People's Government and organized by 
Shenzhen Foreign Affairs Office. As a co-organizer, Huawei is a global leading 
Smart City and Safe City solution provider.

SOURCE  Huawei