What should it look like?, Thinker | Liu Zhiyang: Help Shanghai build an international digital capital. Second | Shanghai | International
Editor's note: Recently, the 2023 World Artificial Intelligence Conference came to an end in Shanghai. Under the wave of digitization, human production and lifestyle are undergoing profound changes. Currently, Shanghai is striving to promote urban digital transformation and accelerate the construction of an international digital capital with global influence. In the view of Professor Liu Zhiyang from Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, the strategic goal of accelerating the construction of an international digital capital with global influence requires Shanghai to not neglect the two dimensions of "digital" and "inclusive". Therefore, it is necessary to empower people's urban construction with digital innovation and promote digital inclusive development. The following is his speech at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics.
The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China clearly points out the need to accelerate the construction of a digital China. Currently, Shanghai is striving to promote urban digital transformation and accelerate the construction of an international digital capital with global influence. The 2023 Shanghai Urban Digital Transformation Key Work Arrangement further clarifies and deploys around economic digitization, life digitization, governance digitization, and digital transformation support. So, what should Shanghai's international digital capital look like? Today's speech, I will share some personal thoughts with everyone around this issue.
Why promote inclusive development of digital cities
As an important engine of socio-economic growth, cities are endowed with more responsibilities and missions in the new stage of development. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development released by the United Nations has established 17 global sustainable development goals, including "building inclusive, safe, disaster resilient, and sustainable cities and human communities.". In the report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, it is specifically emphasized that we must adhere to the principle of building people's cities for the people and serving the people, improve the level of urban planning, construction, and governance, and accelerate the transformation of the development mode of mega cities.
In the global digital wave, many developed countries are actively promoting the deep integration of digital technology represented by industrial Internet, artificial intelligence and 5G with urban construction to promote the digital transformation of cities. For example, the United Kingdom issued the "Digital Charter", Japan promoted the "super intelligent society", and Singapore proposed the "Smart Country Plan". Against the backdrop of the vigorous promotion of Digital China, some major cities in China are also actively promoting the development of digital cities. The 2023 Shanghai Urban Digital Transformation Key Work Arrangement clearly proposes to promote the joint construction of government and enterprises and social sharing of 40 life digital transformation application scenarios; Continuously improving the level of digital governance and enhancing the vital signs of urban operation; Ensure network and data security, and basically establish a "1+1+N" framework for urban digital infrastructure.
Undoubtedly, as a universal technology, digital technology has significant advantages in promoting urban transformation and development. However, various phenomena also indicate that digital cities have exposed some new problems under the cover of digital appearances, far from meeting the expectations of sustainable urban development goals. These issues include: the value chain locking of industrial digital leap, the imbalance of digital application in urban scenes, platform monopoly of enterprise digital transformation, and digital exclusion of individual digital survival, and so on. Why do these problems arise? The reason for this is that the construction concepts of digital cities and people's cities have not yet been unified. Some cities focus on improving the efficiency and quality of urban governance through digital means, but overlook the core orientation of human value in promoting urban development.
To continuously unleash the digital dividend, it is necessary to pay more attention to the people-oriented nature and promote inclusive development of digital cities in the construction of digital cities.The strategic goal of accelerating the construction of an international digital capital with global influence requires Shanghai to not neglect the two dimensions of "digital" and "inclusive", and must focus on accelerating the digital inclusive development of people's cities. In this regard, digital innovation provides new ideas for solving the problem of digital intolerance in urban construction. Next, I will discuss from three aspects: innovation in the digital society, innovation in digital technology, and innovation in digital governance.
Empowering Digital Vulnerable Groups with Digital Accessibility through Digital Society Innovation
Let's first talk about innovation in the digital society. The so-called digital society innovation emphasizes the use of digital networks to connect different urban residents, help digital vulnerable groups participate in value creation and sharing through daily activities, and solve problems such as uneven distribution of digital resources among different social classes and groups in the process of urban development, unsmooth digital information sharing, and lack of protection of digital development rights, ensuring that digital vulnerable groups can achieve fair digital access.
Digital disadvantaged groups refer to specific groups characterized by the inherent characteristics of digital technology, imbalanced transmission, and existing social structures, resulting in the absence of digital rights, marginalization of digital status, and scarcity of digital resources. This includes both the traditional concept of "digital capability poverty" and the disadvantaged elderly in the digital society, as well as some urban marginalized groups who find it difficult to enjoy the benefits of digital technology due to biases of "urban centrism" and environmental changes. At present, the phenomenon of group inequality in digital cities is very obvious, especially for the elderly who are trapped in "digital poverty" due to issues such as digital access and digital capabilities, which should be given more attention by society.
Singapore is one of the earliest countries to achieve universal digital identity cards, where each resident can complete their daily work through just one app, providing great convenience for the elderly, disabled, and young families. Therefore, the social system empowered by digitization can break the resource constraints, opportunity constraints, and ability constraints between groups, shorten the information distance between vulnerable groups and the digital mainstream, and thus improve the survival status of digital vulnerable groups.
When building an inclusive international digital capital, Shanghai should fully consider the specific needs of digital vulnerable groups, help them master the knowledge and skills required for digital embedding, and enable all urban residents to equally enjoy the beautiful life brought by digital city services. Specifically, firstly, attach importance to the humanistic care of digital promotion. Establish a concept of urban construction that combines "digital human rights" with "substantive equality". We should focus on the basic rights of digital vulnerable groups and provide diversified assistance as much as possible for their participation in social activities and sharing of development achievements. For example, relying on universities for the elderly and disability service institutions to establish "silver haired lecture halls" to help these groups adapt to digital life; Launch a batch of digital literacy open courses to enhance the digital awareness and ability of job seekers in online employment, and so on.
Secondly, it is important to appropriately retain countless character regions. Digital transformation is not achieved overnight. Retaining traditional methods such as telephone lines and guiding personnel can better help marginalized groups gradually integrate into the intelligent society, meet the needs of different age groups, educational backgrounds, and lifestyle habits, and make the entire urban ecosystem more diverse and inclusive.
Thirdly, strengthen digital inclusive transformation and lower the threshold for digital urban living. Digital inclusiveness is a digital channel that enables groups who have long been excluded from modern urban production and life to enjoy urban services. We should focus on building a friendly digital lifestyle circle, simplifying the use process of digital public service facilities, guiding community comprehensive service platforms to widely connect with the needs of diverse urban residents, and lifting the threshold restrictions of the digital society on vulnerable and marginalized groups.
Promoting Digital Integration of Large, Medium, and Small Enterprises through Digital Technology Innovation
In the digital age, urban data volume is showing exponential growth. A large amount of machine generated data and corporate behavior data are widely collected, leading to blurred boundaries between the digital world and the physical world, as well as between online and offline. However, the spirit of data sharing has not been fully realized. For example, platform enterprises utilize the advantages of big data and algorithms to divert a large amount of traffic towards their investment alliance enterprises, resulting in unequal distribution of data resources. Due to data silos and barriers to cross platform communication, small and medium-sized enterprises cannot fully enjoy the convenience brought by digitization, and some even face the survival crisis of "raw material supply shortage" and the monopoly dilemma of "being constrained by the platform". In addition, the driving effect of digitalization on urban industries is uneven. For example, in suburban agricultural planting and rough processing, due to the lack of bargaining power, they are still deeply embedded in the low end of the existing value chain, and the digital survival environment is more fragile.
Digital technology innovation emphasizes the collection, calculation, integration, and distribution of various resources through digital networks, maximizing the effective utilization of resources, forming a new growth path characterized by integrated development, and creating a symbiotic and win-win new ecosystem for urban development. The advancement of digital technology has provided urban managers with a complete set of frequently updated databases and a series of advanced analytical tools for processing old and new data, but it has also brought new challenges. These technological tools may deepen biases in the data or provide short-term solutions to address long-term challenges. Therefore, digital technology innovation needs to achieve integrated development through restructuring the digital industry chain and digital cooperation mechanisms. On the one hand, the traditional industrial chain is controlled and regulated by the chain owner, while the industrial Internet promotes industrial interconnection and decentralization. The digital industrial chain realizes direct interaction between participants through distributed technology and smart contracts, and SMEs can integrate resources more widely, thus improving the resilience and flexibility of enterprises. On the other hand, digital technology innovation has greatly expanded the innovation network of traditional industries. Innovation activities have shifted from fixed offline physical spaces and clearly identified enterprises to online and offline integration, physical and virtual integration, internal and external integration. More and more small and medium-sized enterprises are able to integrate into industry chain governance organizations such as industry alliances formed by large enterprises.
To build Shanghai into an inclusive international digital capital, we should not only pursue technological innovation in data analysis, but also focus on open data sharing systems. Specifically, firstly, enhance the role of digital technology in the restoration of digital rights for small and medium-sized enterprises. On the one hand, implement the "industrial empowerment partnership" plan for small and medium-sized enterprises, including building a new batch of common technology R&D and pilot platforms to support the innovation chain integration of large and medium-sized enterprises, emerging a batch of industrial Internet platforms to support the digital integration of large and medium-sized enterprises, and carrying out special training for leading talents in the operation and management of small and medium-sized enterprises to promote talent integration. Guide SMEs to carry out R&D, innovation and integrated application of industrial Internet and artificial intelligence in urban production, and accelerate the penetration of their main business in urban basic production; On the other hand, encourage small and medium-sized enterprises to participate in digital construction such as urban social governance, actively expand investment in "sinking business", and seek the unity of economic profits and social value in digital city construction.
Second, the industrial Internet enables the digital transformation of traditional industries. Industrial Internet provides new impetus for traditional industries with information flow driving technology flow, capital flow, talent flow and material flow, which can promote traditional industries to improve quality and efficiency, guide and promote traditional industries to integrate into the digital industry network. Enhancing data analysis of diverse industries not only promotes internal discussions within urban governments, but also encourages stakeholders outside the government to think deeply about fairness and inclusiveness. For example, Boston, USA has launched an open data portal that tracks the city's "health status" from multiple dimensions, prompting stakeholders to discuss which issues the city government should prioritize. Therefore, if we want different stakeholders to unite and participate in urban governance, the key is to use data as a force for urban democratization construction to stimulate dialogue related to fairness. Data collaboration networks can facilitate the connection between upstream and downstream of the industrial chain, and build trust mechanisms on the collaboration network through new technologies, thereby creating new commercial value.
Thirdly, data connectivity should strengthen the foundation for the integrated development of large, medium, and small enterprises. Platform enterprises form a de facto competitive advantage by collecting a large amount of data, making data a strategic asset that can strengthen their digital monopoly position. Meanwhile, data is also the cornerstone of platform monopoly. To solve the problem of platform monopoly, it is necessary to increase efforts in promoting data portability, data interoperability, and data openness. Utilizing the advantages of replicability and low marginal cost of data resources, exploring the co construction of data platforms by large, medium, and small enterprises, and supporting them in accelerating digital transformation, forming an ecological network of large, medium, and small enterprises under the guidance of digital technology.
Driving the Digital Linkage of the Whole Society through Digital Governance Innovation
Currently, global digital city construction is fully underway, but in practice, phenomena such as "chimneys", "data silos", and "duplicate construction" are not uncommon. The government, departments, and industries involved in urban digital transformation are not isolated, but complement each other and should form a situation of coordinated development. Digital governance innovation emphasizes the use of urban network governance systems to improve the efficiency of inclusive innovation cooperation among multiple entities, address free riding and opportunistic behaviors in cross departmental, cross regional, and cross level cooperation, and thus build a smart city management solution for digital society networking and efficient governance.
Digital governance innovation can leverage the intelligent and real-time characteristics of digital technology to facilitate cross-border cooperation among governments, enterprises, universities, social organizations, and citizens, forming a top-down governance approach based on intelligent data and social inclusion. Firstly, digital governance innovation promotes the implementation of cross departmental, cross regional, and cross level governance. By comprehensively utilizing technologies such as big data, cloud computing, blockchain, and artificial intelligence, we aim to promote information exchange between different regions, departments, and levels in areas such as livelihood services, social security, disaster prediction, and emergency management, and enhance the efficiency of government perception, analysis, and resolution of social needs. Secondly, innovation in digital governance improves the accuracy of the government in meeting public needs. Through the accessibility and convenience of digital technology, the government can more timely perceive the needs of the people and achieve more agile, flexible, and efficient government governance. Thirdly, digital governance innovation promotes the convenience of governance processes. By constructing a digital government platform, we can optimize the approval process, lower the approval threshold, reduce the processing steps, compress the processing time limit, and enable more data to run away and less people to run away. Internationally, many cities in developed countries have improved their urban governance methods through digital innovation. For example, Zurich, Switzerland has established a smart city laboratory to coordinate extensive cooperation at the urban level, encouraging different stakeholders at home and abroad to promote the disclosure of government governance data while protecting individual privacy. Through the establishment of a resident interface for the smart city project website, suggestions and feedback from society can be reported and absorbed in real-time.
To build Shanghai into an inclusive international digital capital, we should not only focus on cross-border cooperation and dynamic adjustments between different departments, but also follow up on policy support measures to achieve organic integration of technology and governance. Specifically, firstly, we need to accelerate the construction of cross departmental, cross hierarchical, and cross system digital functional platforms for public services. By utilizing digital technology to strengthen the standardization of functional, departmental, and process coordination between various administrative units, we can ensure that business integration can be achieved both within and outside the city. We will fully leverage the advantages of digital technology in breaking through objective limitations, shorten the spatial and temporal distance between large and small urban areas within the urban agglomeration, and enhance the connectivity between Shanghai and surrounding small and medium-sized cities.
Secondly, build a shared governance and co construction governance database for the whole society. Through digital technology innovation, we aim to streamline administration and delegate power to the market and society, enhance the autonomy and synergy of individuals, social organizations, enterprises, and other diverse entities, and enable them to participate in the digital reform process, jointly improving the quality and level of urban governance.
Thirdly, strengthen the construction of digital governance teams and promote an optimization mechanism for updating and iterating digital applications. With the rapid development of big data and related technologies, it has become possible to achieve large-scale urban governance through digital twin means. However, the lack of digital technology personnel may become an objective obstacle to the widespread application of digital governance. Therefore, it is necessary to optimize the cultivation and evaluation system for digital innovation personnel and digital management personnel, and use scenario simulation to exercise different talent combination systems to enhance the construction ability of a service-oriented government.
Overall, the direction of urban digital transformation should be "digital inclusion", striving not to leave behind any organization or individual. Digital innovation can ensure that all groups have equal access to and enjoy consistent digital information and services, promote the open sharing of digital infrastructure and production materials among large, medium, and small enterprises, and drive digital linkage throughout society. Against the backdrop of building an international digital capital with global influence, Shanghai should seize the new wave of digital revolution, fully utilize digital technology to promote the emergence and rapid development of innovation, solve the problem of inclusiveness in the digital process, innovate public service supply methods, improve public service supply efficiency, and build a more fair, beautiful, and sustainable digital people's city.
Biography of Thinkers
Liu Zhiyang, Chair Professor and Doctoral Supervisor at the School of Business, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics. Director of the Research Department of Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, Executive Vice Dean of the School of Entrepreneurship, and Director of the China Social Entrepreneurship Research Center. Serves as a member of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Education Guidance Committee of the Ministry of Education, Secretary General of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Education Branch of the China Higher Education Association, Director of the Social Entrepreneurship Professional Committee of the China Enterprise Management Research Association, and Vice Chairman of the Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship Branch of the China Society of Technology and Economics. The main research areas are social entrepreneurship, digital entrepreneurship, venture capital, and emerging industries.
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