Hong Kong’s innovators are making waves. So why is it so slow with its smart city plans?
- No shortage of tech inventors and innovators in the city, but it is hard to commercialise their products
Ronald Pong watched with dismay as some Hong Kong cabbies carried out undercover sting operations recently to expose Uber drivers who did not have permits to pick up passengers.
The taxi drivers’ frustration with competition from the popular ride-hailing platform has festered for years, but the angry confrontation was also a sign of what was holding Hong Kong back in the global race to embrace technology.
An entrenched preference for sticking to established norms and the reluctance to embrace new ideas prevented the city from becoming “smarter”, said Pong, an information security management and computer forensics specialist who chairs the IT governance committee of the Smart City Consortium, a body helping the government.
“As the adoption of smart mobility is growing, car-sharing and ride-hailing apps like Uber are popular all over the world,” he said. “But the authorities have not addressed the issue since Uber began operating in the city in 2014, enhancing the social acceptance of technology.”
Experts said that while Hong Kong had no shortage of tech inventors and innovators, it was hard to commercialise their products and it was no surprise that the city fell back in global rankings for smart city development.
Hong Kong slipped a spot from last year to rank 20th in the Smart City Index 2024 released by Swiss business school the Institute for Management Development in April.
Zurich, Oslo and Canberra took the top three spots among 142 cities ranked based on how well they used technology to improve the quality of life for residents.
