How Do the Media and Netizens Feel About Hong Kong Building a Smart City?

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Recently, the topic of "smart cities" has been rekindled in Hong Kong due to the "InnoTech Expo 2017." At the opening ceremony of the expo, Chief Executive Carrie Lam stated that to develop the innovation and technology industry, the government would intensify efforts in eight areas: increasing resources for research and development, attracting scientific research talent, providing venture capital, building scientific research infrastructure, revising existing laws and regulations, opening up government-owned data, leading changes in government procurement systems, and strengthening science education in schools.

Among these, the government has selected several key areas for focused development, including biomedical technology, smart cities, and robotics technology. These visions and initiatives by the Hong Kong government are indeed good news for transforming Hong Kong into a "people-oriented" smart city, and I am optimistic about their success.

However, as I emphasized in the previous column, the development of a smart city needs to go through four stages: digitalization, networking, intelligence, and wisdom. Under a grand blueprint, the three key elements of demand, experience, and participation need to proceed simultaneously and complement each other to steadily move forward and effectively realize the smart city.

According to a recent network data research report by uMax Data, the Hong Kong government proposed a plan to build a smart city in the 2017 Policy Address on January 18th this year and conducted public consultations in August and September.

From mid-June to mid-August this year, 950 pieces of data were collected from news media (including traditional print media and online media) and social platforms. Of these, 650 pieces of netizen volume came from Facebook, accounting for 68.4%, and 212 news reports, accounting for 22.3%. Less than 10% came from forums, WeChat, and YouTube.

After the Hong Kong government released the Smart City Blueprint Consultant Research Report in early July, online volume fluctuated, causing a wave of reports and discussions. In mid-August, netizens began to pay attention to developments in the mainland in this field and made many comparative comments with the Hong Kong environment.

The sentiment analysis results conducted using machine learning showed that the news media generally held a neutral (53.6%) and positive (42%) attitude towards the development of a smart city in Hong Kong. However, on social platforms, there was a significantly higher proportion of negative (18.2%) voices.

After categorizing all reports and netizen opinions using automated and manual correction methods, it was found that among the positive opinions on the development of a smart city in Hong Kong, news and online public opinion mainly focused on the benefits it would bring to Hong Kong's technological development, such as promoting the development and widespread application of innovative technology (67.4%) and helping Hong Kong's economic development (17.9%).

Among the negative opinions, the main concerns were the current lack of overall development direction (33.3%), concerns about personal data and privacy being violated (26.7%), and doubts about potential collusion of interests (20%).

Additionally, suggestions for the smart city mainly focused on how to use innovative technology and share data (23.2%) during the construction process, involving more technology personnel (18.8%), and updating existing laws (17.4%).

These data may not represent the opinions of all Hong Kong citizens, but they at least reflect the orientation of the news media and some netizens concerned about this matter. There will always be voices from "citizens" in the future as the Hong Kong government promotes and implements the development of a smart city.

The three elements of demand, experience, and participation have already been reflected in the wisdom of netizens.

Dr. Angus Cheong Chairman of the Asia-Pacific Internet Research Alliance and Chief Data Consultant of uMax Data Technology Co., Ltd.

(Originally published in Hong Kong Economic Journal)