Minister Abayev: 'Smart city' concept to bring Astana international prestige
"One of the key indicators of the "Digital Kazakhstan" Government Program is the development of "Smart City" concept in the five largest cities of the country: Smart Astana, Smart Karaganda, Smart Ontystuk, Smart Almaty, and Smart Aktobe. Regional akimats (regional administrations) are responsible for bringing these projects to life. The main priorities of their work in terms of smart city development are to improve the living standards of region's residents, increase the share of public electronic services by local executive bodies, help the regions of Kazakhstan enter the "Smart City" international ranking, and develop the architecture of the akimats," the minister told a Government session on Tuesday.
According to him, the "Smart City" concept has already been developed and approved. The authorities have arranged training of employees in the regions, defined the criteria for assessing the implementation of the project initiatives, pilot zones in the regions, and draft roadmaps for 2018. Minister Abayev said that in the near future it is planned to launch a laboratory, form a working group, approve roadmaps, and establish a competence center.
"Presently, there are many organizations and independent experts that are deeply involved in assessing the maturity of the implemented models of "Smart City" and compile the rankings of smart cities. Participating in these rankings not only will raise the popularity and international prestige of the city [Astana], but will also allow gradual generation and adoption of some of the world's best technologies for effective solution of the most diverse urban development issues. In this respect, we have developed a system for assessing key performance indicators (KPI) to assess a region's readiness and its decision to participate in the world ranking of smart cities," said Dauren Abayev.
The minister informed that it is planned to establish the competence center for the adoption and implementation of the Smart Astana projects that are mainly aimed at generating ideas, searching for new knowledge and its active transfer with consultations and service solutions. As the minister noted, the competence center will assist in deciding on and developing projects, training for the selection of technologies, financing models, and will also assess the adopted solutions.
"The projects within the framework of the Smart Astana concept will be implemented through a public-private partnership, service model of informatization, public funding, and private investment," Abayev concluded.
Besides, Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Bakytzhan Sagintayev charged the governors of the regions to test mobile applications developed within the framework of the Smart City project.