From November 3rd to 5th, the 2022 Apsara Conference kicked off in the Cloud Town, Hangzhou. With the theme of "Computing Drives Future" and the purpose of driving the innovation of computing technology, the conference gathered more than 1000 honored guests, including 20 academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering, many well-known experts and scholars, and leaders of enterprises and industries. Prof. Der-Horng Lee, Dean of ZJUI, was invited to attend this conference together with his team.

Efforts urged by ZJUI to construct smart cities with sustainability and livability becoming a trend

The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China points out that China needs to accelerate the transformation of the development mode of mega cities, implement urban renewal actions, build livable, resilient, and smart cities, and create a new development pattern.

At this conference Prof. Der-Horng Lee delivered a speech with the theme of “the Practice of Sustainable and Livable Smart City in Singapore.” From multiple dimensions including the strategies and policies, land transportation planning, public transport transformation, integrated development cases, and new cities and towns in Singapore, he explained the profound theories in simple terms and elaborated the status of Singapore’s Vision 2025 to build itself into a smart nation and the problems worth paying attention to during the process of development, which provides new thoughts for the development of Chinese-style sustainable and livable smart city.

At present, China's scientific and technological undertakings and urban development have undergone historic and structural changes. Hence, China has become an innovative country. Prof. Der-Horng Lee said that building a sustainable and livable smart city needs to be carried out from four aspects: execution, professionalism, resource allocation and future perspective:

The first is execution: the future-oriented sustainable and livable smart city is not within reach, so the effectiveness and sustainability of urban policies are particularly needed.

The second is professionalism: we should focus on scientific methods and adopt scientific planning as the main input of urban development.

The third is resource allocation: we should reasonably allocate limited urban resources including land, transportation, medical care, education, economy, employment, etc. through evidence-based practice.

The fourth is the future perspective: the future urban economic form must be digital economy, which needs digital infrastructure. The sustainable development of cities must seek common solutions in the coupling of digital economy and digital infrastructure construction.

Through cooperation and discussion, the future has arrived

After the forum, Prof. Der-Horng Lee was invited to participate in the academician closed-door meeting to discuss the direction of cooperation with several fellows and executives from Alibaba.

According to Prof. Der-Horng Lee, the international campus, Zhejiang University is building an International Collaborative Education Model by adopting an international student training model that is self-initiation and that combines the best practices of east and west. Besides, the international campus comprehensively connects the national strategy and the strategy for integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta, build a model layout of "one campus, one city, one circle, and multiple points, " explore regional innovative development modes, and strive to become a source of innovation to serve local development. Currently, ZJUI has been committing to building smart cities for many years. Prof. Der-Horng Lee and his team are jointly speeding up to build “Laboratories of Smart Integrated Multi-Modal Mobility.”

To meet the major needs of the country and Zhejiang Province, the Laboratories for Smart Integrated Multi-Modal Mobility introduce international advanced concepts and practices, carries out systematic and cutting-edge research on basic theories, key technologies and demonstrative applications around the "Integrated Multi-Modal Mobility theory and key technologies," and solves the major key problems of China's lack of comprehensive transportation digital twins technologies and systems by means of integration, intelligence and greening, builds an international leading comprehensive three-dimensional transportation digital twins key technology and integrated operation demonstration project, and constructs an international leading comprehensive transportation and intelligent logistics research team and platform.

Deeply rooted in Industry-university-research cooperation, frontier of science and technology are on full display

Furthermore, Prof. Der-Horng Lee also visited the live stream room of "Frontier Science and Technology" of Yunqi TV Station, and discussed with Mr. ZHANG Peng, founder of Geek Park, and Mr. ZENG Zhenyu, vice president of Alibaba Cloud Computing, on the topic of "Industrial Intelligence is the only way to Digitalization."

The live stream topic mainly focuses on the necessity, application, and future development of industrial intelligence. The online live broadcast has a warm response, with 56000 online viewers.

In the future, ZJUI will continue to be deeply rooted in the research of sustainable, livable, and smart cities, and work with Alibaba and other industrial partners to help promote the high-quality development of livable, resilient, and smart cities in China.