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Local Government, Policy, Technology

Mobile apps and internet of things to take off in China

By Jianggan Li | 12 November 2009

With the availability of mobile broadband infrastructure, mobile applications for governments will take off in China, Professor Qu Chengyi, Member of the Advisory Committee for State Informatisation, has told FutureGov.

ACSI advises the Premier and other senior State Council officials on the issues concerning the use of information technology within government as well as in the society.

“Just two years ago, although mobile phones were widely available, few leveraged them for business applications,” he said, adding that this year he has witnessed a few governments taking the lead to leverage the mobile platform, since 3G networks are available and smart phones are abundant.

Currently 10 per cent of all the mobile phones sold in China are smart phones, and this is growing at annual rate of 28 per cent, said Qu, citing local market research.

There are currently more than 700 million mobile phone subscribers in China.

For instance, Chengmai County in the Southern Hainan province, has introduced a mobile working platform for its civil servants. The functions available are email, notices and instant messaging. These might be simple, but they have achieved savings of RMB3000 (US$439) per civil servant since the official launch on January 1st this year. Also the productivity has improved as people no longer need to wait to go back to the office to process tasks.

Qu also believes that cities in China will start exploring the ‘Internet of Things’ (IOT) very soon. IOT is a concept where objects, equipped with miniscule identifying devices, are able to communicate with each other to form, often, a self-configuring network.

The areas of application, within a government context, would be public assets/facilities management, environmental surveillance, disaster management, and remote monitoring of health.

He said currently there are few hurdles preventing adoption, such as lack of standards and a scarcity of proven successes. In order to leverage IOT successfully, Qu reckoned that governments would have to clearly identify their needs and work out a clear structure for different stakeholders to work together.

“Pervasive adoption of IOT will not only help government solve many practical issues,” Qu said. “IOT will in the meantime generate a big industry ecosystem which is beneficial for the society as a whole.”

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