On November 12, 15 finalists including four Vietnamese teams officially announced by the Mekong Business Initiative (MBI) were invited to pitch innovative urban solutions at the Smart City Innovation Challenge (SCIC) Demo Day in Hanoi.
The winner of the SCIC is GridComm from Singapore. GridComm created a network over a city’s power lines and use this network to control street lights, implementing automatic dimming and predictive maintenance, saving cities millions of dollars. The team will then use this network to connect smart city sensors throughout the city.
Singapore's XRvision, the first runner-up of the award offered an on-premise and cloud-based Facial Recognition & Video Analytics solution that works with any number of cameras while providing real-time detection and alerts.
Meanwhile, the second runner-up of SCIC is Mimosa Technology (MimosaTEK). This is an agricultural technology startup based in Vietnam, specializing in Internet of Things precision agriculture. MimosaTEK’s precision irrigation solution helps farmers to use water more efficiently based on crop water demands and climate factors measured by sensors devices.
MimosaTEK introduces their irrigation solution.
The winners received cash prizes and will be fast-tracked to the cities’ acceleration programs to help localize their solutions, thereafter securing projects if agreed milestones are met.
“Vietnam’s urban centres are growing at the fastest clip in ASEAN, putting a major strain on cities such as Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Large urban centres struggle with a range of issues, which, to name a few, include affordable housing, energy efficiency, and traffic management. Smart city solution potentially solves these problems to facilitate positive steps towards sustainable and liveable Vietnamese cities,” said Dominic Mellor, head of MBI.
Innovative city solutions in 12 key focus areas identified by the city governments and the smart city steering committees of Vietnam focused on affordable housing, energy efficiency, traffic management and smarter parking, drainage, sewerage and waste management, urban agriculture, water purification and delivery, public security and monitoring of natural disasters, ecotourism and environmental planning, health care, education, e-government services, and more greenery and public spaces. The solutions must be suitable for the implementation capability of cities and provinces of Vietnam.
The Demo Day is being organized by MBI in cooperation with The National Agency for Technology Entrepreneurship and Commercialization Development (NATEC-MOST), HCMC Department of Science and Technology, Da Nang Business Incubator (DNES), Vietnam Angel Investor Network (iAngel) and Vietnam Software Association (VINASA).
