Following are the opening remarks by the Secretary for Innovation and Technology, Mr Nicholas W Yang, at the press conference on the Smart City Blueprint for Hong Kong today (December 15):
      
     Good afternoon. Today, six other bureaux's Under Secretaries are joining me in this press conference, showing the Government's determination and collaboration to promote smart city development.
      
     Smart city can be both technology agnostic and technology driven, taking the good fundamentals of our city management to the next level. As smart city is people-centric, we strive to develop Hong Kong into an even more advanced and liveable smart city, benefiting all walks of life.
      
     Smart city development involves different areas and requires co-operation and co-ordination across bureaux. The high-level and inter-departmental Steering Committee on Innovation and Technology chaired by the Chief Executive held its first meeting last Friday. The Chief Secretary for Administration, the Financial Secretary and 10 Principal Officials including myself are committee members. The Smart City Blueprint for Hong Kong released today was endorsed by the Steering Committee at this meeting.
      
     The Smart City Blueprint provides a clear and concrete direction for smart city development in Hong Kong. It sets out development plans in six major areas. I will now highlight the key measures initiated by the Innovation and Technology Bureau.
      
     First, we will provide an eID for all Hong Kong residents, a key digital infrastructure for smart city development. eID can ensure secure access to online transactions and services provided by public and private organisations using a single digital identity and authentication. Such eID will save the trouble of different user names, passwords and security tokens for different services.
      
     A pilot Multi-functional Smart Lampposts Scheme will also be put in place. Some 400 smart lampposts will be installed at four urban locations, i.e. Causeway Bay/Wan Chai, Central/Admiralty, Tsim Sha Tsui and Kwun Tong. Equipped with sensors, data networks and related digital facilities, the smart lampposts can enhance city management through collection of real-time city data like weather, environment, transportation and crowd flow. They can also provide information and services such as Wi-Fi, future 5G networks and district information.
      
     Within the Government, we will revamp the cloud infrastructure platform, update the technology as well as the related standards and structures. We will build a new government big data analytics platform to enhance operation efficiency and e-Government services through big data resource sharing and with the aid of artificial intelligence.
      
     Lastly, I would like to point out that measures listed in the Smart City Blueprint will be evolving and updated from time to time to meet the needs of future developments. We will provide smart city development progress updates online and engage the public in a most transparent manner.
      
     I will stop here. The Under Secretary for Transport and Housing, the Under Secretary for the Environment and the Under Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury will each give a brief introduction on initiatives under their ambit. We will then open the floor for questions. Thank you very much.　

Ends/Friday, December 15, 2017
Issued at HKT 17:29

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