Here’s what you missed at this year’s Smart City Summit & Expo in Taipei

Recently, we
had the opportunity to attend the 5th annual installment of the
business-to-business trade show known as the: Smart City Summit & Expo. Held at the Nangang Exhibition Centre and
jointly organized by Taipei City Government and numerous
governing bodies, the event saw more than 30,000 visitors over the course of
the exhibition.

The summit
featured 210 exhibitors and 1050 booths, attracting more than 30,000 exhibition
visitors.

The
exhibition kicked off its first day within a closed press-area where we were
flanked by numerous foreign delegates and press from collaborating countries
like France and Mongolia, anxiously waiting for representatives from the Taiwan
government to deliver their opening addresses.

We saw
high-government officials such as the Deputy Mayor of Taipei City and the President
of Taiwan grace the event with their speeches focusing on the theme of
collaborating with the world-at-large to build better smart cities by using
Taipei and similar cities as test-beds.

“Leaders
need to be aware of the importance of Smart Cities, that is the most
fundamental step before we can enable better lives for our citizens” – Deputy
Mayor of Taipei

After a
flurry of speeches and a few prizes award to innovation partners, the first day
of the exhibition was ceremoniously opened via ribbon-cutting from the
organizers as well as the Taiwanese Government.

We had our
eyes peeled whilst taking a quick stroll through some of the exhibits. The
exhibitors showcased numerous Smart City solutions leveraging big data that
were actively in-use by the government as they were demonstrating its uses.

The
applications of these solutions ranged widely from disaster prevention uses
such as weather monitoring and water-pollution monitoring, to ones that impact
the daily lives of every citizen such as transport beacons in train stations
that offered internet connection underground in case of emergencies.

It was
refreshing to see a smorgasbord of foreign tech giants and startup companies,
big and small, displaying their wares for all to see. One particular solution
that caught our eye was the UPARK solution that was already beta testing in
commercial carparks within Taiwan.

This
solution allows carpark users to remotely reserve parking lots long before
their cars get to the vicinity and to subsequently ‘unlock’ the reserved space
using their smartphones once they got there. The device when installed
correctly in a ‘locked’ mode would prevent any car from entering a reserved lot
with a reinforced steel construction that can withstand even some of the
heaviest vehicles.

The app
empowers everyday people like you and me to create our own AR elements that
could be viewed by other people with the app. The AR capabilities made
accessible to consumers allow a much deeper interaction with individuals and
make for more interesting marketing for micro-brands.

In the
above picture, the exhibitor was showing us an example of how popular
Taiwanese singer-songwriter Jay Chou used the AR application to promote his
upcoming concerts.

Started by a group of video and augmented
reality experts, they’ve made it dead-simple to build your own AR objects and
parse the images for reference through the application.

Different companies also showed off their healthcare solutions for the future. These solutions mainly revolved around data management of private patient data, as well as advanced sensors which were able to tell vital signs for analytics.

All in all,
the exhibition(s) were an eye-opening experience for all here. It provided a very real peek into industries that will be drastically re-shaped by
technology, the implications as well as a humbling look at how far humans have come
as a species.