A global city of excellence by 2040
SHANGHAI aims to be a global city of excellence by 2040, said Mayor Yang Xiong on November 6.
The drive to so would be accompanied by further development in the smart Internet industry, digitalization and innovative regulatory scheme, he said after the annual meeting in the city of the International Business Leaders’ Advisory Council.
The one-day meeting discussed the challenges and opportunities of making Shanghai a smart city, the transformation of industries, the role of small and middle-sized enterprises, supply of talent and the use of data to pursue the goal of becoming a global city of excellence.
Speaking of the city government’s role in the process, Yang indicated the city faces challenges ahead with building a smart Internet system — such as the drastic changes it will bring with it.
The city government must prepare itself to be able to deal with such difficulties and find the right balance between innovation and regulation, he said.
“I don’t think innovation and regulation run counter to each other,” Yang said at a media conference after the meeting. But there is always a bottom line when it came to innovation, he said, such as the issues of security, and ethical and moral concerns.
The theme of this year’s meeting, “Sustainable Development of Shanghai in the Internet Era,” attracted around 500 foreign and Chinese delegates.
Mark Weinberger, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the auditing firm Ernst & Young, was elected the new chairman of the International Business Leaders’ Advisory Council for the next two years.
He takes over from Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP Plc, the world’s biggest advertising agency.
The advisory council meeting, initiated in 1989 by then Shanghai Mayor Zhu Rongji, was envisioned as a platform for the world’s top business leaders to provide strategic advice on Shanghai’s development and challenges.
Members of the International Business Leaders’ Advisory Council spoke highly of Shanghai’s efforts to drive innovation growth and also put forward their suggestions and advice regarding how to further use the Internet to help to build a smart city.
WPP’s Sorrell called for an integrated approach involving all stakeholders from public and private sectors, academia and civil society to unlock the frontiers of the Internet and to create a new engine for economic growth.
“Shanghai can be the driving force in implementing and realizing the national blueprint for Internet Plus,” he said.
Regarding pharmaceutical and healthcare services, Roche Group CEO Severin Schwan said, “Shanghai has the potential to become one of the leading innovation hubs in the world by focusing on science and technology.”
Founding executive editor of “Wired” magazine Kevin Kelly shared his opinion on artificial intelligence and Internet innovations in his speech at the meeting.
“The drawing up of Shanghai’s future plan should be put under a context where we would assume that machines are inter-connected and the fact that we’re able to do things collectively in real time at a scale we’ve never been able to do before,” he said.
“Internet is providing us with new platforms to work collaboratively which we have never done before,” Kelly said.
Joe Kaeser, CEO of Siemens AG, said he was confident of the prospects that data technologies to be fully leveraged to help manage traffic and smart transportation solutions based on digital technologies could help raise the whole city’s efficiency — a crucial part of Shanghai’s sustainable plan.
Dan Ammann, President of General Motors Company, said Shanghai has already taken a lead in the move toward sustainable transportation and creating a framework for new business models such as ride sharing, and encouraging the testing and deployment of intelligent and connected vehicle technologies.