Taoyuan Future Data Symposium shares insights on unlocking data's potential

桃園未來數據座談會分享解放數據潛力的見解

Symposium talks about city's past, present, future data governance


TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A two-day symposium took place over the weekend in Taoyuan in tandem with the city's two-week-long Big Data Application Exhibition, offering insights on unlocking data's potential for social and economic good.

Representatives and data governance specialists from industry, government, and academia gathered at the "Future Data Symposium" between Oct. 15 and 16 to exchange views on how digital technologies have rapidly assimilated into the daily lives of Taoyuan residents over the years. The experts also discussed how big data analytics can accelerate digital transformation, which provides the industry sector with unparalleled opportunities for value creation in multiple dimensions.

Having ranked first place in international smart city competitions and earning the title "intelligent community of the year" three years ago, Taoyuan City is delving deeper into data governance, in collaboration with international and local tech giants, to take the smart city to the next level.

With wide internet access availability, the city government swiftly adopted fifth-generation (5G) wireless technology in its emergency medical services and smart healthcare at the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak to help health workers quickly respond to various medical conditions of infected residents. "Health workers can track patient information, such as their breathing, temperature, blood oxygen levels, images, and other bio data without delay due to 5G’s low latency,” director of Taoyuan's IT department, Yu Wan-ru (余宛如), said.

The city further extended its 5G network to new devices and platforms in order to optimize municipal services for citizens and to provide new gains in its operational efficiency. Transmission costs have reduced significantly and data quality has improved thanks to advanced data analytics.

Yu said the cabinet-level 5G project "Asia Silicon Valley" gives Taoyuan’s smart city development a push as more big tech companies contribute to make the dream possible. "Microsoft's Azure has been introduced into the city's hybrid cloud, HwaCom Systems Inc. is the network integration and management solution provider, for example," she added.

Apart from discussions about the application of the latest information technology and big data, the symposium also explored how big data can be implemented in healthcare services and businesses of different sizes to further create more employment opportunities.