Abstract
The world is undergoing very rapid urbanisation especially in the developing world; in Malaysia three-quarters of the population now live in urban areas. Thus, cities are growing even more important as they are our centres of commerce and innovation and the gateways to the global economy. Cities are also where problems (from the effects of climate change to rising inequality) and solutions meet. Our responses to those problems will likely succeed or fail in cities. The World Health Organizations Healthy Cities programme which started in Europe in 1985 was one of the responses to address the ills of cities, based on the concept of the new public health. Healthy Cities seek to balance developments in the overlapping spheres of the social, economic and physical (natural and built) environments in order to achieve a sustainable health and wellbeing for its citizens. Healthy Cities impact on the health and wellbeing of its citizens by acting on the upstream determinants of health via the settings approach to health promotion. Kuching City has been part of the Healthy Cities programme since 1994. In the meantime, the ongoing digital and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) revolution has seen a shift in focus from the proliferation of communication (1970s & 1990s) and information (1990s & 2000s), to the extraction of knowledge from the resulting data; in other wordsa shift from Information Societies to Knowledge Societies. The Malaysian Multimedia Super Corridor which was announced in 1995 was meant to leapfrog Malaysia into a knowledge society. The ICT revolution also led to the emergence of Smart Cities that tap into new streams of data on the state and performance of the city systems, often in real time, to make better decisions and achieve the aspirations of its residents. Specifically, smart cities use the latest in technology and connectivity to collect lots of data through instrumentation, bring these data together through integration, and then analyse the integrated data for intelligence on how to improve the citys services and quality of life. ASEAN Member States (AMS) have established an ASEAN Smart Cities Network (ASCN) and the ASEAN Smart Cities Framework was endorsed by the ASCN on 8 July 2018. A smart city in ASEAN aims to achieve a balance between three interdependent objectives: competitive economy, sustainable environment and high quality of life. Kuching City is one of the 26 pilot ASCN cities. The two pilot smart city projects that Kuching Smart City plans to undertake are: (a) Integrated Smart Traffic Light System, and (b) Integrated Flood Management and Response System. The City is ever evolving, and many challenges need to be addressed and overcome, before the dividends of the digital revolution and smart city on health and wellbeing, can be felt.
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@proceedings{APCPH-2019-29,
title = {Smart and Healthy Cities: Perspectives from Kuching City},
author = {Andrew Kiyu and Julin Alen},
year = {2019},
date = {2019-07-22},
urldate = {2019-07-22},
journal = {6th Asia-Pacific Conference on Public Health 2019 Proceedings},
issue = {6},
abstract = {The world is undergoing very rapid urbanisation especially in the developing world; in Malaysia three-quarters of the population now live in urban areas. Thus, cities are growing even more important as they are our centres of commerce and innovation and the gateways to the global economy. Cities are also where problems (from the effects of climate change to rising inequality) and solutions meet. Our responses to those problems will likely succeed or fail in cities. The World Health Organizations Healthy Cities programme which started in Europe in 1985 was one of the responses to address the ills of cities, based on the concept of the new public health. Healthy Cities seek to balance developments in the overlapping spheres of the social, economic and physical (natural and built) environments in order to achieve a sustainable health and wellbeing for its citizens. Healthy Cities impact on the health and wellbeing of its citizens by acting on the upstream determinants of health via the settings approach to health promotion. Kuching City has been part of the Healthy Cities programme since 1994. In the meantime, the ongoing digital and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) revolution has seen a shift in focus from the proliferation of communication (1970s \& 1990s) and information (1990s \& 2000s), to the extraction of knowledge from the resulting data; in other wordsa shift from Information Societies to Knowledge Societies. The Malaysian Multimedia Super Corridor which was announced in 1995 was meant to leapfrog Malaysia into a knowledge society. The ICT revolution also led to the emergence of Smart Cities that tap into new streams of data on the state and performance of the city systems, often in real time, to make better decisions and achieve the aspirations of its residents. Specifically, smart cities use the latest in technology and connectivity to collect lots of data through instrumentation, bring these data together through integration, and then analyse the integrated data for intelligence on how to improve the citys services and quality of life. ASEAN Member States (AMS) have established an ASEAN Smart Cities Network (ASCN) and the ASEAN Smart Cities Framework was endorsed by the ASCN on 8 July 2018. A smart city in ASEAN aims to achieve a balance between three interdependent objectives: competitive economy, sustainable environment and high quality of life. Kuching City is one of the 26 pilot ASCN cities. The two pilot smart city projects that Kuching Smart City plans to undertake are: (a) Integrated Smart Traffic Light System, and (b) Integrated Flood Management and Response System. The City is ever evolving, and many challenges need to be addressed and overcome, before the dividends of the digital revolution and smart city on health and wellbeing, can be felt.},
note = {Type: PLENARY AND SYMPOSIUM; Organisation:},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {proceedings}
}