Currently, information technology has considerable development potential. With ongoing technology advancements in cloud computing, big data, and the Internet of Things, the technologies applied in developing smart cities have also advanced with time. To facilitate efforts by the government of Taiwan in promoting national programs for intelligent and smart cities, National Applied Research Laboratories (NARLabs) and Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) cohosted the Smart Cities and Urban Analytics Workshop through the Chicago smart city establishment case study in order to learn about experiences in establishing smart cities as well as gathering knowledge on developing smart cities and the Internet of Things.

Group photo of VIPs.

Invited guests of the Workshop included ANL's Director of Government Relations, Norman D. Peterson, ANL's Director of Urban Center for Computation and Data, Charlie Catlett, and University of Chicago's Senior Fellow in Urban Science, Brett Goldstein.

ANL's Director of Government Relations, Norman D. Peterson (left) and NARLabs' President Ching-Hua Lo (right).

The conference began with speeches delivered by President Ching-Hua Lo and Director Norman D. Peterson. President Lo stated that smart cities emphasized using technologies, such as the Internet of Things, cloud computing, and big data, to improve living quality and protect the environment. Information and communications technology play a key role in developing smart cities. NARLabs and ANL co-organized this conference to share their experience in establishing smart cities. Both organizations believe that society will benefit from developing smart cities. Director Peterson indicated that ANL is very pleased to share its experience of building smart cities for the Chicago government. He also expects that both parties will engage in further collaboration and communication in the future.

ANL's Director of Urban Center for Computation and Data, Charlie Catlett, delivering a speech on

The first session of the conference commenced with Director Charlie Catlett's speech on "Understanding and Improving Cities by Using Data and Computation." Director Catlett stated that Chicago is one of the most famous smart city cases worldwide. This project started in 2014 and was conducted by University of Chicago and ANL's Urban Center for Computation and Data. In this project, street lamps were loaded with various sensors to collect city data such as temperature, wind speed, rainfall, air quality, illumination, and sound levels. Through cell phone traffic, the number of people traveling around the city could be counted, and then an analysis of big data could be performed. Director Catlett believes that the success of a project depends on adequate cooperation among government, academia, and industry. In addition to technical infrastructure, using data and computation to understand and improve cities is crucial. Through analyzing these data, Chicago was anticipated to become a safe and clean city with improved living quality. The success of this project has also led to many other cities in the US expressing interest in learning about smart cities.

University of Chicago's Senior Fellow in Urban Science, Brett Goldstein, delivering a speech on

After Director Catlett's speech, University of Chicago's Senior Fellow in Urban Science, Brett Goldstein; Commissioner of the Department of Information Technology of the Taipei City Government, Wei-Bin Lee; and Director General of the Department of Information Service of the Ministry of Science and Technology, Chung-Chi Chang, introduced actual practical experiences on establishing smart cities in Chicago, Taipei, and Taichung, respectively. Notably, the Plenario project of the Chicago smart city program involved analyzing the relationship between criminal behavior and various data such as climate, traffic, as well as 911 emergency call records. This project established a rapid decision-making system with a smart learning function. It also provides an APP programing platform for the public to create applications that are more innovative.

In the afternoon session, Manager of Government and Regulatory Affairs at IBM Taiwan, Cynthia Chyn; Professor at the Department of Computer Science Institute of Geography and Environmental Resources at National Taiwan University, Chih-Hong Sun; and Vice President and Director General of Smart Network System Institute at the Institute for Information Industry, Ming-Whei Feng, respectively represented industry, academia, and research fields in presenting the technical architecture of smart cities. The final conference session was a panel discussion for representatives from industry, government, academia, and research institutes to exchange ideas and gather intelligence on establishing a smarter and more convenient Taiwan in the future.