Taiwan comes top in Asia-Pacific ‘smart city’ awards

Taiwan, China and New Zealand were the biggest winners with four, three and three awards won respectively. Other winning countries included Australia, South Korea, Malaysia and Singapore.
"We've seen a surge in cutting-edge Future City projects being deployed across first-tier cities in developed economies. This signals a strong turnaround and commitment by advanced Asia-Pacific governments to create the best ‘live, learn, work and play’ digital ecosystems,” said Gerald Wang, regional head of government and health insights for market researcher IDC. 
"Smart City spending globally is expected to reach US$189.5 billion [Bt5.8 trillion] by 2023 [as of June 2019], with the upwards spending growth in transportation, public safety, utilities and education-related projects reflected strongly in almost half of the entries received in these categories.”
IDC’s Smart City Asia Pacific Awards, or SCAPA, are now in their fifth year of recognising private and public organisations that have excelled in 12 categories according to IDC’s Smart City Development Index framework. Past contenders include Thailand’s Digital Economy Promotion Agency, Singapore’s Government Technology Agency, and the city governments of Taiwan’s Taipei, China’s Shenzhen, Shanghai and Beijing, South Korea’s Incheon, Daejeon and Busan, Australia’s New South Wales and New Zealand’s Auckland, Christchurch and Wellington.
This year’s smart city project winners were as follows:
1. Buried Pipe Management System by SmartCity Division (Daegu Urban Corporation, Daegu, South Korea) named Top Smart City Project for Administration.
2. Virtual Wellington by Wellington City Council (New Zealand) named Top Smart City Project for Civic Engagement.
3. Civic Participation Initiative for Taoyuan Citizen Card Application Expansion by Taoyuan City Government (Taiwan) named Top Smart City Project for Digital Equity and Accessibility.
4. Singapore Tourism Analytics Network by Singapore Tourism Board (Singapore) named Top Smart City Project for Economic Development, Tourism, Arts, Libraries, Culture, Open Spaces.
5. Will Digital Teacher by Vector Limited (New Zealand) named Top Smart City Project for Education category, tied with Taipei City Government’s Cross Learning Barriers: Omni Smart Education (Taiwan).
The Asia/Pacific winners are decided based on IDC benchmarking, public voting, and judging from an international advisory council. This year’s regional winners will be pitted against the other regional winners in IDC’s smart city competitions around the world for the opportunity to be named the global IDC smart city champions.