Vice President of Alibaba Group Ren Geng, President of Alibaba Cloud Smart China
Promoting the construction of a digital China is an important strategy formulated by the party and the country, which drives the transformation of production methods, lifestyles and governance methods through digital transformation as a whole; digital city construction is an important part of the construction of digital China and a pioneering practice of digital China construction. Accurately grasping the new characteristics, new laws, and new trends of digital cities, and scientifically planning the practical path of digital city construction have become the key measures for local governments to improve service quality, enhance government credibility, and build a service-oriented government that is satisfactory to the people.
At present, all parts of the country are promoting the construction of digital cities in full swing. The construction of digital cities is ushering in new historical opportunities and is at a key historical node. Based on the practical experience and successful cases of Alibaba's in-depth participation in the construction of more than 80 digital cities in recent years, it extracts and summarizes the construction practice and experience of "two cores, three transformations and four horizontal and five vertical" for social reference.
01 Two cores: "change drive + technology traction"
The traction of digital city construction is exogenous digital technology, and the essence is endogenous reform inward. The construction of a digital city is to use digitalization as a means to lead the overall transformation and all-round reform in various fields such as government services, economic development, social governance, ecological protection, and government operations, and fundamentally lead governance methods, production methods, and lifestyles. a substantial increase.
Therefore, the construction of a digital city is first of all a cognitive revolution, and its transformation relies on the dual-core drive engine of "change-driven + technology-driven". It is a system project that requires both hands and hard work. To build a digital city, we must avoid falling into the "theory of only one product that can cure all diseases" that relies on a single product system, and avoid falling into the "theory of relying on functional departments" that relies too much on a certain functional department to promote and develop alone; Overemphasis on short-term highlights, ignoring long-term planning, and "looking at short-term results" are the three major experience-building traps.
Figure 1 Two-core engine of digital city construction
Two-core drive On the one hand, it is necessary to fully realize that the construction of a digital city is not a "single-soldier advance" in a certain field, but an organic whole that is integrated and integrated. The systematic change and revolutionary reshaping of production factors are also to stimulate the vitality of future social production and development, and to create a future-oriented modern digital civilization. The construction of a digital city is a typical "top leader" project and a "top leader" project. It is a top-down reform promotion and bottom-up innovation stimulation. Think and plan strategically.
Figure 2 Digitalization Drives Three Major Changes
The other side of the dual-core drive is to effectively enhance the awareness of the application of digital innovation technologies, make full use of new paradigms of technological innovation and cutting-edge subversive technologies to drive the construction and development of digital cities, so that the operation and governance of the government and the economy and society are based on digitalization. On the basis of data, data, and digital intelligence, we can truly realize the beautiful digital China blueprint of "supporting the whole city with one cloud, connecting the whole city with one data, empowering the whole city with one brain, governing the whole city with one network, and benefiting the whole city with one end".
On the frontline of the fight against the new crown pneumonia epidemic, the health code, which is useful in emergencies and easy to use in daily life, is to make full use of innovative technologies such as big data fusion and intelligent research and judgment, and use "small changes" in epidemic prevention and control to achieve "big ones". Value”; in the main battlefield of economic development, Haikou City Brain makes full use of intelligent recommendation technology to find vacant rooms for tourists in 10 seconds, enter parks in scenic spots in 20 seconds, and check in hotels in 30 seconds, allowing tourists to “swim for an extra hour” in Haikou; in social governance At the forefront, Zhengzhou City Brain's "East Railway Station Large Passenger Flow Intelligent Evacuation" uses multi-source data fusion and real-time prediction technology to reduce the time for passengers to leave the station by 10 minutes per capita.
It can be seen that in the era of surging digital technology, whoever first grasps the golden key of innovative technology will first open the broad road to government governance in the new era.
02 Three turns:
From "department center" to "people center"
From "Kowloon Water Control" to "Overall Smart Governance"
From "city management and control" to "running the city"
After realizing that digital city construction is a cognitive revolution, three changes need to be made in specific urban governance practices.
First, shift from being "department"-centered to "people"-centered.
The essence of the shift from "government-oriented" to "people-oriented" is to be oriented by the people's problems, demand-oriented, and convenience-oriented. By starting from scenarios and matters, functional departments at all levels are forced to build digital cities. , break the departmental barriers caused by the inertia of the original system and path, vigorously enhance the people's sense of gain, satisfaction and happiness, and truly form a new type of people's city where the city is the home, the enterprise is the main body, and the masses are the masters.
For example, in Zhejiang Province, where Alibaba is deeply involved in the construction of digital government, the government services that focus on the most urgent needs of the people, the most urgent and difficult issues, and the most frequent issues have set up a "good and bad review" system to allow ordinary people and enterprises who handle government services to evaluate The government and staff score and leave comments, which really makes people's affairs change from "doable" to "easy and often done".
Secondly, urban governance has changed from "Jiulong water control" to "intelligent overall governance".
The core essence of overall intelligent governance is to hand over the complexity of public services to the government and hand over the simplicity to the business masses. Through the extensive use of digital technology, cross-departmental data sharing, process reengineering and business collaboration, the government encapsulates the internal operating mechanism of the government in an integrated box of "whole government", driving the government to form a horizontal-to-edge and vertical-to-bottom The collaborative system transforms the government's service mode from "departmental fragmentation" to "government integration".
In Hangzhou, mass enterprises do not need to "find territories" to handle "cross-domain affairs", but directly "find the government" and "find windows", so as to realize "handling affairs in different places nearby, handling Ningbo affairs in Hangzhou"; in Zhengzhou, through a " "Things" are "neat noses", and mass enterprises have changed from looking for "departments" to looking for "matters", realizing "one thing for new students to enroll" and "one thing for qualifications to buy houses", which truly reflects the concept and practice of the overall intelligent government.
Figure 3 One thing to prove the qualifications for buying a house
Finally, urban governance has changed from "urban management and control" to "urban operation".
At present, technologies such as the Internet of Things and data intelligence have begun to be deeply applied to various urban scenarios, structuring and digitizing various elements such as people, things, places, events, and venues in real cities, and fully integrating cross-system and cross-business , all kinds of cross-departmental data build up the urban brain infrastructure that makes the city hear and see. Especially for pain points and difficulties in urban governance, such as safety assurance, emergency response, resource scheduling, and judgment and analysis, it can be achieved through the operation of the city brain from "post-event statistics" to "pre-event prediction", from "passive disposal" to "active processing ", to transform and upgrade the original urban management based on manual labor to urban operation driven by intelligence.
For example, in the face of Shanghai's first "double yellow" early warning of thunderstorms and strong winds on April 12, 2020, Shanghai City compared the flood situation data sensed by the city's Internet of Things with historical data through the urban operation management system carried on Alibaba Cloud Analysis can quickly simulate the development trend of flood situation and disaster impact, and then cooperate with emergency response, public security, transportation and other departments to take corresponding flood prevention measures, showing the prototype of the digital city system's self-learning, self-adaptation and even self-evolution capabilities. Seven points for operation, two points for management, and one point for punishment are expected to become a new paradigm of urban governance in the future.
Figure 4 Overall Framework of Digital City
To build a digital city and truly realize the digital transformation of the city, it is necessary to consolidate the digital foundation, which can be achieved through the "four horizontal and five vertical" represented by the four major platforms and five major systems.
03 "Four horizontal" technology platform
First, strengthen the digital base platform.
If the foundation is not solid, the earth will shake and the mountains will shake. The unified e-government cloud digital base platform has become the information infrastructure for digital city construction, the technical base of the entire digital city, the general container for business innovation, the general background for providing public services, and the general fortress for data security. The digital pedestal needs to fundamentally solve the stubborn problems of the old generation of government cloud such as inconsistent standards, incompatible technologies, inflexible resources, many operation and maintenance problems, and hidden safety hazards.
Facing the future development of digital cities, a solid government cloud infrastructure should have four unique capabilities: one cloud with multiple chips , based on an open technical architecture that adapts to domestic self-developed and reliable chips, and builds a secure and open environment Xinchuang resource pool guarantees the self-development of government affairs system, which is safe, reliable, inclusive and open; builds the native standard of government affairs cloud , facilitates the transformation of government affairs information system architecture, and realizes more flexible deployment and agile development; a unified intelligent operation and management platform integrated with artificial intelligence algorithms, Provide a one-stop operation and maintenance solution for the government cloud to truly realize the construction, use and management of the cloud; elastically expandable cloud service capabilities , Zhejiang Province promoted the "Hangzhou Health Code" to the whole country in only 7 days during the epidemic It is precisely because of the elastic technical capabilities that can be expanded in batches to support large-scale new applications.
Second, build a thick data high-speed rail platform.
If it works, it doesn't hurt, if it hurts, it doesn't work. Data is a valuable factor of production in the digital age and the key core to realize digital governance, but data that generates value is an asset, and data that has no value is cost, and the core of value generation is data "accumulation, storage, and communication". The implementation carriers of the data platform in the field of government affairs are usually divided into three fields. The P domain is the public basic data domain, the G domain is the government shared data domain, and the S domain is the social open data domain. Through the data sharing platform, the realization of data sharing and exchange in various regions, departments, and levels, accelerating data flow, and activating data assets are the key and support for the success of digital city construction. With more than 1.1 billion users on Alibaba’s e-commerce platform, 3 billion products are updated every day and 150PB of new data governance is accumulated. The practice and experience accumulated, the concept of middle platform created and defined first in the industry is not only a methodology for building data and business systems, It is also a product tool to truly integrate big data and realize data capitalization, and it is also a new operation model oriented by data operation.
Third, build a deep "urban brain" digital intelligence support platform.
All in one, empowering the brain. Focusing on the needs of public services and social governance in the construction of digital cities, the digital intelligence support platform provides various self-invoked and flexibly configured public application products and intelligent technology tools in a standardized, componentized, and platform-based manner to create a general support capability base. The new-generation application support platform must not only include identity authentication, trusted certificates, geographic information, intelligent customer service, low-code development and other basic components to realize "one-stop service"; Platform, digital twin support platform, unified interactive platform and other product functions to realize "one network unified management"; it also includes the "one office" government office platform for the government's internal palm office. At present, many provinces and cities are based on the typical platform products supported by the three types of applications supported by Alibaba's first launch in the industry: government affairs middle platform + city operation middle platform + government affairs nails, and are promoting the overall digital transformation of urban economy, life, and governance.
Fourth, build an open platform for digital intelligence applications.
A hundred schools of thought contend, and a hundred flowers bloom together. Relying on the support and empowerment of core technologies such as the intelligent engine in the city brain platform, low-code development, digital twins, and government affairs graphs, and using diversified mobile channels such as government affairs DingTalk, Alipay, applets, and APPs, to lead the "government service" One thing, one social governance event, one "government-office integration" "Niubi", around the "small incision, deep application, great value" scenario construction roadmap, so that thousands of industries and thousands of ecology can build a "government service" A new application ecology of the digital city with "one network for office", "one network unified management" for urban governance, and "one office for government operation".
Figure 5 Technical Architecture of Digital City
04 "Five Verticals" System Guarantee
In conjunction with the four horizontal lines, there are also five vertical system guarantees.
First, the "six relationships" of the top-level design system.
The first step in digital city construction is to do a good job in top-level design and overall planning. The top-level design system is first of all to advance ideas, strengthen system thinking, reform thinking, digital technology thinking, and break the traditional thinking and path dependence. The core of the top-level design is demand-oriented, aiming at the most urgent needs of the people, enterprises, and governments, the most expected problems to be solved, and the areas with the greatest sense of gain, so as to better break down institutional obstacles and break through institutional obstacles. The key to the top-level design is to properly handle the six relationships:
One is the relationship between top and bottom: compliance between central and local governments, system docking and data smoothness.
The second is the relationship between left and right: cross-departmental system integration, data sharing, process reengineering, and organizational reshaping.
The third is the relationship between internal and external: the government and the market "harmonic resonance", exploring a new model of construction and transportation services that is guided by the government, market players, and social participation.
The fourth is the relationship between unified and divided: scientifically plan out the "unified construction and divided construction" relationship between provinces and cities, cities and counties in construction and operation, to ensure coordination between the upper and lower levels and the same pace.
The fifth is the relationship between long and short: there must be long-term planning of the blueprint route to ensure the correct direction; there are also short-term highlights that can see the big from the small to enhance the team's confidence.
Sixth is the relationship between good and bad: People-centered experience evaluation such as "good and bad reviews" combined with quantitative evaluation of digital models, so as to motivate the advanced and expose the backward.
Second, an organizational management system characterized by "task-oriented, task-oriented, and index-based modeling".
In the actual promotion process of digital city construction, we usually face "four difficulties in implementation": 1. Difficulty in scientifically formulating goals: lack of digital measurement, it is difficult to scientifically and accurately formulate task goals; During the decomposition process, the coordination relationship between departments is unclear, task execution is difficult to implement, and subordinate execution is blind; 3. Difficulty in state monitoring: fragmented business data, fragmented management elements, information lag, and passive decision-making; 4. Difficulty in process supervision: process The evaluation is not quantified and detailed, it is difficult to know the deviation of task execution in time, and the assessment and supervision of key nodes are absent. Therefore, a digital city needs to use a deterministic organizational management system to deal with the uncertain and difficult problems of implementation.
The first is the work system . Establish a cross-departmental, cross-level, and cross-regional substantive work class, implement the responsibility of the "top leader", carry out the overall "one game of chess", and promote "block linkage and coordinated governance", which is a major direction for digital city construction. , Leaders' important speeches, government work reports and other major goals use task management tools to dismantle tasks. Task dismantling reflects two integrations, including horizontal cross-departmental integration and vertical cross-level integration, to achieve horizontal to edge and vertical to the bottom, to ensure that all relevant parties and departments form their own and common task trees, so that tasks can be connected up and down , Pull left and right.
The second is the indicator system . According to the major tasks of decomposition, the task leader shall determine the core indicators, establish an indicator factory that "covers all functions, decomposes to the lowest end, and refines to the smallest particles", and formulates visible and operable indicators. , Specific quantitative indicators that can be implemented.
The last is the evaluation system . By creating digital platforms such as negative reviews and drying platforms, we can give full play to positive incentives and real-time process supervision.
Third, the data resource system is the "source code" of transformation and the "root directory" of technology.
Whether we can accelerate the development of data elements, promote data openness and sharing, improve data applications, improve data sharing efficiency and other data resource system construction is a watershed for cities to truly realize digitalization. The essence of data resource system construction is consciousness change, process reengineering, system reshaping and technological leap, which is the comprehensive epitome and concrete presentation of internal change drive + technological leap traction. Shanghai has proposed "one catalog and three lists" for data governance reform. By the end of 2020, a total of more than 4,000 open data sets have been opened, and a total of 11 public data open application pilots have been promoted in multiple industries such as inclusive finance, business services, and intelligent transportation. A total of 23.77 billion pieces of data have been collected, and more than 24 billion pieces of data have been exchanged at the national, municipal, and district levels.
Fourth, the system regulates the system, helps the transformation go hand in hand, and escorts the change.
With the ever-changing development of digital cities, institutional norms, policies and regulations need to be co-evolved and updated with digital governance, digital economy, and digital technology. In terms of overall direction and taking into account the differences in implementation, it is also necessary to evaluate future prospects and current influence. Especially in terms of data standards, security standards, business standards, and promotion standards, it is necessary to build all-round, multi-angle, and multi-level policy support and institutional guarantees. For example, Shanghai is currently promoting the legislative process of the "Public Data Regulations" to consolidate and protect the digital reform.
Fifth, build an operation system, "integrate construction and transportation, promote construction with transportation".
There are usually three typical misunderstandings in the construction of traditional digital cities, which led to the emergence of zombie systems that were not easy to use, unwilling to use, and not commonly used in many places in the past. First, focus on "visible delivery" and ignore "intangible operations"; second, tend to "new projects" and ignore "iterative upgrades"; finally, focus on "hard facilities" and ignore "soft capabilities". Digital city construction is a big topic, a marathon, and an overall battle. It is necessary to integrate construction and transportation, promote construction through transportation, and run through the entire life cycle of the digital governance system, and promote the participation of multiple sources such as the government, enterprises, and the public. Construction and operation of digital governance system. At present, many local governments such as Beijing, Hangzhou, Zhengzhou, Haikou, Ningbo, etc. have cooperated with large technology companies such as Alibaba to innovate cooperation models under government leadership, policy guidance and government-enterprise coordination, and make full use of the funds of large technology companies. Advantages in technology, talents, mechanisms, etc., as well as Internet thinking and concepts such as "user thinking, traffic thinking, platform thinking, and cross-border thinking", have achieved good results in public services and social governance such as one-network management and one-network unified management. As a result, a new model of integration of construction and transportation in today's digital cities has been created, and new vitality has been injected into the cooperation between government and enterprises in the new era.
conclusion
In the final analysis, the construction of a digital city is a grand strategy that needs to be united and highly valued. It is a major subject that requires in-depth understanding and systematic planning. It is a major project that requires overall coordination and integrated promotion.
I believe that as long as we put our ideas first, use scientific methods, reshape mechanisms, and take strong actions in the construction and transformation of digital cities, we will definitely be able to run faster and achieve new results on the big runway of digital reform!