ENG-2016 — Page 146

6

Innovation and Technology

A preliminary planning study by the HKSTPC is under way to examine the suitability of the sites. in developing a science park and industrial estate.

The Productivity Council offers one-stop solutions, particularly to the manufacturing and related service industries, to encourage technology adoption and promote innovation and sustainable development. It also facilitates industrial upgrading and helps enterprises adopt high-value- added production.

Smart City Development

The government is seeking to make use of I&T to address urban challenges, enhance city management and improve quality of living. The Office of the Government Chief Information Officer commissioned a consultancy study in September for completion in mid-2017 to formulate a smart city blueprint. The blueprint will comprise policy objectives and strategies, smart city development plans, governance arrangement, digital infrastructure, a legal framework and modes of public-private collaboration. Public views are collected through the www.smartcity.gov.hk portal.

The Wi-Fi.HK brand provides free public Wi-Fi to the public and visitors. Participating organisations from both the public and private sectors together manage over 18,000 hot spots offering at least 30 minutes of free Wi-Fi. The government pledged in 2016 to expand Wi-Fi.HK coverage to 34,000 hot spots by 2019. The speed of Wi-Fi connection at government venues was also doubled to 3-4 Mbps with enhanced security. Plans were under way to subsidise the provision of free Wi-Fi at youth service centres and study rooms run by non-profit-making organisations.

Use of 1&T in Government, Business and Community

User-friendly e-government services continued to be rolled out in 2016. The one-stop portal GovHK, at www.gov.hk, was revamped with a responsive web design.

Another portal, data.gov.hk, provides free public-sector information in machine-readable format to encourage innovative use of the information to benefit the community and support the development of a knowledge-based economy. There are over 6,000 data sets in 18 categories, including population, weather, environment, transport, housing, food, health, employment and labour. In 2016, more than 200 application programming interfaces were incorporated into the portal to help software developers create applications and services.

Government forms are being digitised to allow for online submissions. As at end-2016, more than 1,300 forms frequently used by the public could be completed and submitted electronically.

To safeguard information security, the government strengthened the security measures of its information systems during the year and enhanced its IT security policy and guidelines for compliance by government departments. The Government Computer Emergency Response Team Hong Kong (GovCERT.HK) coordinates and manages government IT and cybersecurity issues, and works with the police and Hong Kong Computer Emergency Response Team

108