A new online world is within our grasp 

“No one will be left behind” was the promise made by regional leaders as they adopted the Asean Smart Cities Framework in Singapore this month, but its focus is mainly on urban centres.
The Internet has given birth to a new world of connectedness and convenience. But half the world’s population are still not online and not benefiting from digital innovations.
Meanwhile we are seeing the rise of fake news, scams, hate speech, social media purportedly being exploited by foreign influencers for political purposes, and governments attempting to “regulate” the online networks in response.
But instead of regulation and control, why don’t governments think outside the box?
Software giants have brought countless benefits to users, mostly for free. The masses subscribe to their apps and services because they make their lives so much easier.
Why can’t governments do the same: invest public money on innovations that benefit citizens, create a reliable digital platform on which people can live, work, create, do business and even safely entertain, and provide services that are free or at least affordable for all?
Why a platform supported by governments? Because the cost of applying state-of-the-art innovations globally is out of reach for small companies and individuals.
What is lacking in the online environment now is trust, reliability and inclusivity.
But we now have a powerful tool that can address the issue: blockchain.
David Lang, chief product officer of Infinity Blockchain Labs, explains: “In the near future people will use blockchain technology like the Internet and we can imagine that each company will build its own trustworthy network based on blockchain technology and then connect them together.”
A blockchain works in a peer-to-peer network to record transactions (or conversations) between users “efficiently and in a verifiable and permanent way”. 
Vietnamese tech giants including Viettel and FPT have succeeded in applying blockchain to services.
Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC has offered a blockchain phone with shipping planned from December. 
This makes blockchain’s potential to forge “trustworthy networks” more feasible than ever, not only among companies but for all types of communities.
One important note: everyone of us needs a space for creation, for dreams, for jokes, friendly boasting, fiction, entertainment and so on: the world of the imagination has always been central to human life. The virtual world, meanwhile, reflects real life. So to ensure creativity, freedom of thought and individual privacy there should be separate systems/networks: one for the public sphere and the other for the private.
Existing real-world communities, groups and structures could be transformed into various types of “smart” communities. This is one model that could bridge a glaring gap that exists in the current idea for smart cities – namely the “disconnect” between the virtual world and the physical world.
The tendency now is for people to live a dual life – online and offline – with no connection between them.
Closing that gap offers the potential to curb the untrustworthiness and covert nature of interactions in the online world.  People would have incentives to behave better, good deeds would be duly encouraged and promoted, bad behaviour would be traced and its source discredited. Trust among human beings, which is being eroded day by day, would instead be enhanced. People would be more responsible for their own actions and their community.
If all information posted online were vetted in this way at source by the smart community (ie, via blockchain technology), digital information would likely be more accurate, meaning there would be less need for management and regulation and thus more freedom. 
This same system already works in the form of peer reviewing for scientists.
Blockchain technology can be applied not to enforce top-down regulation but as a way of avoiding “asymmetric” information. That would mean both citizens and authorities would have to behave responsibly as the system ensures transparency. This would help get rid of corruption.
This kind of communication would also aid inclusive development, allowing anyone who is willing to contribute or do work without any conditions, to be credited for it by blockchain technology.
The smart communities could be a locality (village, commune, district, provinces or even nations), professional groups (scientists, lawyers, artists) or simply groups of like-minded people (religious groups, NGOs). Membership of one would not exclude you from another.
This alternative, structured way of exploiting Internet technology offers huge advantages. 
Job-seekers, for example, could seek a position without going through an intermediary and perhaps being cheated or exploited, since the credit system is verified by blockchain technology.
The vital role of public administrator would go to the government, which would ensure the system received impartial, timely funding for the public benefit and also that revenues are fairly shared.
All this may sound simplistic or utopian, but the technologies to realise smart communities are either already here or certainly within reach. 

The writer is editor-in-chief of Viet Nam News. The Asian Writers’ Circle is a series of columns on global affairs written by top editors and writers from members of the Asia News Network and published in newspapers, websites and social media platforms across the region.