Khon Kaen and Phuket click as smart city picks in Asia Pacific

The winning projects, Khon Kaen Smart Health and Phuket Smart Tourism and Living Communities won under the “Public Health and Social Services” and “Tourism, Arts, Libraries, Culture and Open Spaces” categories. 
Phuket and Khon Kaen were 19 out of 148 most outstanding smart-city projects in APeJ initiated by the Digital Economy Promotion Agency (DEPA). Both the winning projects illustrated the best practices of urban innovation with ultimate focus on the use of technologies (cloud, platforms, analytics, Internet of Things, mobile solutions) and data, unique partnerships, funding models and/or community involvement, IDC said.
The Khon Kean Smart Health project is a DEPA initiative with local healthcare service providers and universities, that has three components.
The first is a smart ambulance that utilises teleconference, IoT, and robotics technology to increase emergency dispatch operation efficiency and allows healthcare professionals to perform initial diagnostic work and emergency treatment before the patients arrive at hospitals.
The second is the preventive healthcare service leveraging smart wristbands and smart home solutions to monitor and collect citizens’ health data and provide health guidance accordingly.
The third is still being developed. It uses blockchain and big data analytics to develop a medical data-sharing platform that can be accessed by both public and private healthcare service providers.
The Phuket Smart Tourism and Living Communities project is a joint initiative of DEPA and the Ministry of Digital Economy, in partnership with various government agencies, Prince of Songkla University and Phuket City Development to ensure sustainable tourism and safety in the city. 
Components of this project include smart tourism, public safety, smart environment, and smart government. Smart tourism is deploying citywide free high-speed Wi-Fi, Phuket Smart City application, and smart wristbands for tourists. Public safety is ensured by deploying CCTV cameras with analytics capabilities including licence plate and facial recognition, and vessel-tracking system. Smart environment deploys waste-water management system that utilise IoT technology. And, smart government is creating a city data platform to provide real-time city data to support decision-making.

Gaining momentum
Jarit Sidhu, head of operations at IDC Thailand said that as smart-city transformation is on in full swing in the Asia Pacific region with major economic, social and environmental implications, collaboration at all levels from the governmental agencies to the grassroots citizens is necessary. The DEPA has validated its potential of carrying out smart-city transformation and leveraged emerging technologies and innovation to make cities more liveable and the residents forward-looking.