HCM City (VNA) – Ho Chi Minh City needs Europe’s
experience and solutions to create smart cities, a conference heard on June 30.
Speaking at the “Cyber security, Internet of Things and
Connected Services towards a smart city” conference, organised by the European
Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam (EuroCham), Vo Quang Hue, vice chairman of EuroCham,
said: “The Smart Cities subject is one of great importance for EuroCham Vietnam.
EuroCham believes its members have a lot to offer for Vietnam’s sustainable
development.
“The relevant know-how developed and tested in Europe and
all over the world needs no introduction and we are very keen to promote
contacts between relevant companies and the Vietnamese Government for business
opportunities that can produce concrete results in terms of a smart future for Vietnam’s
cities.”
Philip Hung Cao, security solution consultant at Palo Alto
Networks, feared cyber security would be a nightmare for a smart city.
“All parts of a connected city like field components, data
transmission network, data processing and of a smart city like data aggregation
connectivity and smart processing face the threat of attack.”
He listed all the possible threats to smart cities like
eavesdropping/wiretapping, unauthorised use/access, tampering/alteration,
theft, distributed denial of services (DDos) and loss of reputation due to
hacking besides hardware failure/multifunction, software error, operator/user
error, electrical and frequency disturbance/interference, end of support
obsolescence, acts of nature, and environmental incidents.
To avoid the security threats, he suggested seven solutions:
building a risk-based approach to cyber security; setting clear priorities;
defining minimum ICT security baselines; sharing and co-ordinating threats and
vulnerability information; building incident response capabilities; boosting
public awareness, education and workforce training; and enabling public,
private and academic co-operation.
Guru Mallikarjuna, vice chairman of EuroCham’s information
communication technology sector committee, and managing director, Robert Bosch
Engineering and Business Solutions Vietnam Co.ltd, said: “Internet of Things is
the basis for a broad smart city competency, and by 2020 four billion people
will be connected with 25 million applications, 50 trillion gigabytes of data
and 25 billion intelligent systems.”
He also listed challenges and solutions for mobility, energy
and security, the three pillars of a smart city.
The challenges facing mobility are the need to
reorganise/revitalise existing infrastructure and having a connected and
efficient public transportation, he said.
The solutions are intelligent parking, fleet monitoring and
management and intelligent traffic management, he said.
The challenges facing energy supply include management of
peak demand, environmental impacts, improvement of existing infrastructure and
their solutions are energy management, smart grid (metering, software) and
smart water meters, he said.
The security challenges are public security (mass events,
crime) and the impacts of natural disasters and video surveillance, emergency
services and disaster response are the solutions, he added.
To grasp the opportunities in the context of
the “fourth industrial revolution” and address various socio-economic
issues, the Government has recently begun adopting measures to encourage cities
to become smart cities.
Actions and initiatives have been taken with respect to
several information and communication technology breakthroughs which are
central to this shift like Internet of Things, Data Flow, Connected Services,
e-governance, autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence, robotics, and
others. -VNA