Department of Information Technology

The Taipei City Department of Information Technology (DoIT) held the “2024 Taipei Spring Codefest - City Dashboard Hackathon” award ceremony and results presentation on July 2. Mayor Chiang Wan-an attended the event to encourage the participants who stood out in the 30-hour-long programming competition. After the impressive dashboard presentations by the teams, Mayor Chiang expressed his gratitude to the participants and encouraged the teams: “From disaster prevention to climate change issues, each dashboard component provides crucial information to citizens. Not only does it bridge the gap between the government and the public, but it also demonstrates that Taipei has world-class talent. These achievements will extend beyond City Hall and, starting with district offices, gradually integrate into the daily life of residents.” During the hackathon, to make the results more relevant to the public, DoIT invited the departments of civil affairs, transportation, fire, environmental protection, and urban development to provide professional insights based on their respective expertise as scenario challenges for the teams. The winners included students from the National Taiwan University Department of Electrical Engineering and Chung Yuan Christian University Department of Information Management, as well as teams from private companies such as Vpon Big Data Group, Hon Hai Technology Group, as well as contenders from the Taipei Veterans General Hospital. Each team was able to showcase their respective advanced technical skills and practical innovations. The project entries spanned important topics like climate change and net-zero emissions; real-time road control information and traffic imagery, and even predicting trends and issuing warnings based on gastroenteritis outpatient data – all designed to assist people in their day-to-day life. Commissioner Chao Shih-Lung of DoIT made the following remarks: "As the first government agency to embrace open-source, the Taipei City Government aims to enhance service quality and efficiency through innovation. The Taipei Codefest serves as a platform for this purpose. In addition to the spring hackathon, we will host another hackathon in the fall highlighting the theme “City Microservices” to continue this tradition. By disseminating data application techniques under the open-source framework, we hope to attract passionate programming talents who share the same vision of serving the public. Together, we can create high-quality digital public services and set an example of collaboration between the public and private sectors. In the second half of the year, DoIT will redouble its efforts on open-sourcing TaipeiPASS and expanding the scope of open-source resources. We look forward to more people participating and become a part of Taipei’s progress."

The 25th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research (dg.o 2024), organized by the Taipei City Government and National Taiwan University under the global interdisciplinary academic organization "The Digital Government Society" (DGS), held ‘Taipei Night banquet and dg.o Award Ceremony’ at the Regent Taipei on June 13. Mayor Chiang Wan-an presented the dg.o 2024 Best Paper ’Taipei Research Award,’  by Professor Helen Liu (劉康慧) from National Taiwan University, NTU, Commissioner Shih-Lung Chao (趙式隆), and  Deputy Commissioner Hui-Min Chen  (陳慧敏) Department of Information Technology, Taipei City Government, focusing on TaipeiPASS and TAIPEION. This award not only recognizes the professional achievements of the authors but also successfully showcases Taipei's smart city accomplishments to the international academic community, thereby highlighting Taipei's recognition on the global academic stage. Mayor Chiang emphasized the city's commitment to a service-oriented government, prioritizing citizens' needs and promoting digital transformation to improve public services. Hosting this conference allowed Taipei to share experiences and showcase its innovative capabilities and smart city achievements to the international community.   Over 180 experts from industry, government, and academia from more than 30 countries attended the award ceremony. Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) emphasized the city government's commitment to a service-oriented approach, prioritizing citizens' needs, and promoting digital transformation to improve public services. The conference enabled Taipei to exchange knowledge with global experts and showcase its innovation and smart city achievements to the international community. The 2024 dg.o call for papers received significant attention from the international digital government community, with 297 submissions. The DGS review committee rigorously evaluated and accepted 197 papers. The dg.o Best Paper Award was recommended by the review committee. Additionally, all accepted papers are compiled and published by ACM Press in the conference proceedings, included in the internationally renowned academic databases ACM Digital Library and DBLP. This not only acknowledges their outstanding academic research but also provides broader dissemination channels for their work, enabling increased reading and citation to expand their academic influence.This year, four academic papers related to Taipei were accepted by the dg.o review, as follows: "Exploring Government-Citizen Relationships through TaipeiPASS and TaipeiOn Platforms " Using the Taipei Programmers' Festival Hackathon as a case study, this paper explores how the government promotes open-source technology and open innovation practices. " Exploring the Motivations of Open Innovation: An Empirical Case of Open-Source Hackathon Taipei" This paper summarizes the Taipei Smart City Proof of Concept (PoC) projects into 22 technical fields and constructs a strategy for integrating artificial intelligence technology into the municipal framework. " Development of the AI Implementation Framework in Taipei City" Analyzing Taipei City's digital platforms "TaipeiON" and "TaipeiPASS," this paper examines the transformative potential of digital platforms in simplifying administrative services and promoting public participation within four types of dynamic relationships between the government and citizens. " COVID-19 Control and Prevention in Taipei: A Data-Driven Approach: Utilizing data on pandemic prevention" This paper discusses the importance of data-driven strategies using big data for decision support in city prevention or disaster situations during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The 25th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research (dg.o 2024) was held in Taiwan for the first time. A series of seminars were held from June 11 to 14, 2024, at the College of Social Sciences, National Taiwan University. The event was co-hosted by the Taipei City Government and National Taiwan University. Over 170 international participants from 30 countries or regions, along with 50 domestic experts from industry, government, academia, and research sectors, gathered to discuss global digital government, technological development, and public governance topics. The conference included keynote speeches, paper presentations, panel discussions, poster presentations, doctoral colloquia, workshops, award ceremonies, and site visits. During the conference, the Taipei City Government hosted two AI-Driven Smart City Forums. The first forum focused on "Smart Cities, Artificial Intelligence, and Improving Citizens' Quality of Life," featuring experts from various sectors discussing issues related to enhancing municipal service efficiency through technological innovation and practical applications. The second forum, centered on "Achieving Net Zero Carbon Emissions: Integrated Pathways of Strategy, Technology, and Policy," explored combining multiple strategies and innovative technologies to promote environmental sustainability and economic transformation, providing valuable insights and inspiration for future smart city development and environmental protection. The award ceremony was attended by over 180 experts from industry, government, and academia from more than 30 countries or regions worldwide. Mayor Chiang Wan-an stated that the city government's team always upholds the spirit of a service-oriented government, prioritizing the needs of citizens and actively promoting digital transformation to enhance the quality of public services. The conference provided an opportunity for Taipei to exchange and learn from global experts and scholars in the digital government field, while also showing Taipei's innovation capabilities and smart city achievements to the international community. As a continuously advancing smart city, Taipei promotes AI-Driven Smart City initiatives, driving urban innovation with artificial intelligence toward three major visions: safety, mobility, and the future. By integrating new entrepreneurial strengths and creating citizen-friendly public environments, Taipei is committed to building a service-oriented government centered on citizens' needs. According to the 2024 IMD Smart City Index released by the International Institute for Management Development (IMD), Taipei ranked 16th globally and 5th in Asia, showcasing significant achievements. The Taipei City Government will continue integrating innovative technologies to build a forward-looking smart city.

Organized by the Taipei City Government Department of Information Technology (DOIT), the “2024 Taipei Spring Season Codefest – City Dashboard Hackathon” took place at the Jiantan Youth Activity Center, attracting over 200 programmers from across the island. After nearly 30 hours of coding and programming actions, the competition entered its final stage in the afternoon of May 12. The theme of the spring season focused on Taipei City Dashboard as the foundation, allowing participants to use their imagination and creativity to challenge themselves within a given time. Information Technology Commissioner Chao Shih-lung went over the rules of the contest in detail and joined Commissioner Ho Ya-juan of the Department of Civil Servant Development to kick off the event. The Spring Season Codefest covered five subject areas, including “EOC Dashboard,” “Citizen Service Dashboard,” “Disaster Resilient City Dashboard,” “Traffic Safety Dashboard,” and “Climate Change Dashboard.” The teams each selected one of the topics and explored the website data.taipei for relevant open data to be included. After acquiring the information, the teams will analyze and identify key factors that have a significant impact upon citizens’ daily life and come up with an adequate presentation method by developing appropriate tools that can be configured into the city dashboard. Despite the highly challenging scenario, each participant was fully prepared ahead of time – by reviewing the online development instruction video and attending the workshop before showing up at the heated competition.To ensure the top performance of team members under long hours of planning and development, the organizers have set up snack bars and lounge areas on site. In addition to providing food from nearby Shilin Night Market, Taipei City Foreign and Disabled Labor Office has arranged for visually-impaired masseurs to provide services to the contestants, allowing them to rest up before returning to their strenuous tasks. As for the snacks, in addition to endless supplies of treats and desserts, there are also self-serve popcorn and cotton candy machines to help contestants refresh and fill their stomachs before heading back to coding. A number of heavyweights from academia, government, and industries are serving as jury members of the hackathon. They include National Institute of Cyber Security Consultant Kiang Fin-jon and JavaScript.tw founder Wang Ching-hung (TonyQ). The jury listened to team presentations on the data and technologies employed in the respective projects and selected 13 teams to advance into the finals. The jury members of the finals comprised Director Huang Yen-nun of Research Center for Information Technology Innovation at Academia Sinica, New Taipei City Information Management Center Director Chen Fu-tien, CIO Michael Kung of Hon Hai Precision Industry Corporation, and Professor Huang Chung-yang from National Taiwan University’s Department of Electrical Engineering. Following the live demos by the finalists in the afternoon, the top three teams and honorable mention winners were selected. The works of these teams will be incorporated into the Taipei City Dashboard Open Sourcing project in the future, and their innovations will be disseminated across the world along with the open-source dashboard application.

　　On April 21, the Taipei City Department of Civil Servant Development (DCSD) held the Taipei Spring Season Codefest Workshop. Commissioner of Information Technology Chao Shih-lung joined DCSD Commissioner Ho Ya-jiuan to greet the members of all participating teams. The spring season competition emphasizes the theme of ‘design based on the perspective of public users.’ The reason for choosing this theme is to make government data (which oftentimes require users to have a basic understanding of specialized knowledge) more accessible to the regular Joe in a direct and simple-to-understand manner. By presenting the information through a visualized format, this approach will stimulate people’s interest in related topics. The organizers also hope that the competition will help to promote the open-source “Taipei City Dashboard” and to encourage more people to adopt the app, making adding it to the day-to-day living experience of the public and using it as a new standard for public-private-partnership. The event is slated for May 11 and 12.  　　Leading in the call to open-source city service systems, the Taipei City Department of Information Technology (DOIT) hopes to push forth its agenda of strengthening the utilization of city administration data in support the decision-making process of city officials. At the same time, through the holding of Taipei Codefest, the agency also encourages programming talents from the private sector to take part in the process of creating a better platform for digital public services and realizing its vision of “Co-creation, Co-benefits”. The current contest adopts the perspective of citizens and integrates important topics such as disaster response, traffic safety, climate change, services for borough residents, and household registration services, which ensures that the City Dashboard can be more easily introduced into the daily life of citizens. To provide the teams with an overview of trending topics and development highlights, DOIT joined hands with DCSD to co-organize the contest workshop and invited agencies – the Department of Civil Affairs, the Department of Transportation, the Taipei City Fire Department, the Department of Social Welfare, and the Department of Urban Development – to support the event. The workshop offers in-depth analysis and explanation on the following topics: the need of local residents and young workers from other municipalities for information and social services; the ‘pedestrians’ hell’ phenomenon and plans for dealing with the problem; Taipei’s disaster response measures and how the resilience-oriented mechanism helps to reduce the loss of life and property, as well as comprehensive overviews on global issues spanning climate change to net zero. The organizers hope that the programming teams will be able to convert elements from the topics covered into new dashboard components,making the data readily available with the help of visualization tools.   　　As a pioneer of open-source policy in Taiwan’s public sector, DOIT open-sourced the Taipei City Dashboard last year. As a continuation of the endeavor, the city government further released the back end and data end codes of the city dashboard as open source this year. With the kicking-off of the 2024 Spring Season Taipei Codefest, a total of 209 individuals hailing from schools, private companies, and community groups have signed up to compete in the hackathon. The competition will pit top coding teams against each other, and we look forward to witnessing the exciting clashes co-create promising public services platforms, carrying forth the spirit of ‘Co-creation, Co-benefits’.

　　The International Institute for Management Development (IMD) recently published the IMD Smart City Index 2024. Out of 142 cities, the latest rankings indicate that Taipei City has climbed to the 16th position worldwide and 5th in Asia. Compared to the 2023 ranking, Taipei has made significant gains by moving up 13 places. The results indicated that the City’s effort in pursuing smart city development has won international acclaim. 　　The annual index released by IMD is one of the most highly regarded smart city rankings in the world. The evaluation process is based upon the two pillars of ‘Structure’ and ‘Technology’. For the 2024 report, IMD conducted surveys for 142 cities around the world. Taipei’s performance across the board has been well-received by its residents – especially basic sanitation, recycling services, and medical services, which fall under the ‘Structure’ pillar. As for the ‘Technology’ pillar, apps allowing online ticketing services for cultural events and making medical appointments were also popular among respondents. 　　In addition to the aforementioned global smart city evaluations, Taipei City Government has also achieved high marks at various rankings and awards with City projects related to smart city governance and transformation. For example, among the six direct-rule municipalities, Taipei took first place at the 2023 Government Open Data Golden Quality Award. In the same year, the City’s submission for ‘Taipei Government Enterprise Architecture – Evolution of TaipeiPASS as an Example’ won the Award of Distinction at the Open Group India Awards. Furthermore, the “Data-driven City Governance – Taipei Urban Information Center” also claimed the Innovation Application Award at the 2024 Smart City Summit and Expo.  　　As it continues to pursue smart city transformation and digital equality, the Taipei City Department of Information Technology remains dedicated to the policy of open sourcing the Taipei City Dashboard at the same time. The agency first held the “Taipei Codefest and City Dashboard Competition” in 2023, which received overwhelmingly positive feedback from the community. In 2024, it plans to organize Codefest events in during both the spring and fall seasons, starting with the Spring Season Codefest Workshop today (April 21). There is also a “Grand Hackathon Competition” slated for May 11 and 12. By increasing interaction with the civic community through the organization of similar contests, the city government seeks to implement its vision of “co-creation, co-benefits” by garnering the innovative energy of the private sector while boosting the transparency of city management.  　　In the future, DOIT will continue to work on promoting private-public-partnership and strengthening digital resilience. It has adopted “AI-driven Smart City” as its focus of development to create an AI-driven, futuristic Taipei. Through the integration and utilization of AI, the city government hopes to increase the efficiency of city operations and improve the quality of citizens’ daily life, as well as enhancing smart city innovative technology and introducing them into more applications. These initiatives will significantly contribute to Taipei’s endeavor to distinguish itself as an innovative and visionary capital for the future. 

　　The Taipei Pavilion exhibition closed flawlessly on March 22, 2024. Throughout the exhibition, Deputy Spokespersons Yin-Lan Kuo and Wan-Rong Tsai conducted an excellent unveiling  live stream, which has been posted on the Taipei City Government Department of Information Technology's Facebook fan page.Theme 1: Sports City - Smart Taipei, Host: Deputy Spokesperson Yin-Lan KuoVideo linkTheme 2: AI-Driven - Capital of the Future, Host: Deputy Spokesperson Wan-Rong TsaiVideo link　　If you haven't had a chance to visit, here's a summary of the highlights!　　 Mayor Wan-An Chiang transformed into Three AI Metaverse Virtual Tour Guides: Using Mayor Wan-An Chiang as a component, the “AI Taipei Navigation Station” features his virtual counterpart, the “Metaverse Mayor”, acting as the visionary guide. Through real-time generative artificial intelligence calculations, his three avatars conduct different types of tours and immersive MR interactive experiences, allowing visitors to feel as though they were standing in front of the mayor and experiencing the infinite possibilities brought by future technology.　　5G Ambulance - Mazu Ensures Your Safety: The collaboration between the Taipei City Fire Department and Far EasTone introduces the “New Vision for Emergency Medical Services - 5G Joint Emergency Rescue and Video Surveillance” using 5G technology, which enhances pre-hospital emergency care services. This innovative application of 5G's high-speed transmission and low latency improves the accuracy of paramedics' identification and enhances the quality of emergency care.　　 AI Gym - Testing Training Intensity: Drawing inspiration from the upcoming “2025 World Masters Games Taipei & New Taipei City”, scheduled for Taipei next year, this concept blends a myriad of sports elements with track design to inject vibrancy and dynamism into the exhibition. Furthermore, it introduces AI Gym equipment that fuses technological innovation with the sports field to assess training intensity. Coaches from the sports center provide guidance on using this equipment, making it one of the event's most captivating highlights, enticing visitors to give it a try. Also, a friendly reminder that until April 17, you can enjoy a 30% early bird discount on registration for the 2025 World Masters Games! Let's encourage everyone to actively participate and embrace the challenge of the world!　　Beautiful Green Exhibition Hall: The design of the exhibition hall extends curated themes of “sustainability” and carbon footprint reduction, with a primary focus on utilizing eco-friendly reusable materials. Collaborating with Taipei Flower Auction Co., Ltd., and the Parks and Street Lights Office, Public Works Department, Taipei City Government, the exhibition hall features abundant plantings, creating a lush green environment while emphasizing and strengthening key display points. This results in a high-quality and immersive exhibition space that showcases Taipei's commitment to environmental sustainability and guides everyone towards a vision of livable sustainability.　　 Smart Pharmacy: Taipei City Hospital has implemented various technological applications to create a smart pharmacy dedicated to safeguarding public medication safety and providing a higher quality healthcare experience. The smart pharmacy includes intelligent dispensing counters, precise dispensing from medicine cabinets, automated inventory management, and big data analysis to prevent medication shortages. Additionally, the public can use the “Slow Prescription Reservation App” for mobile appointments to pick up prescriptions in advance, enjoying convenient medical services. 　　Enriched Short Talk Activities: Focused on Taipei's innovative achievements and future focal points, these series of talks include AI technology, RPA applications, award-winning project results, and friendly new startup mechanisms. Through sharing and exchanging ideas with the public, important topics for Taipei's future development are constructed, deepening public understanding of the city government's information infrastructure and Smart City development vision. In particular, the AI-focused talk highlights Taipei Metro's significant technological advancements, showcasing AI implementation and big data utilization in the metro network and train dynamic scheduling. This demonstrates Taipei's leading position as a technology-driven city and opens the curtain to a more sustainable future for Taipei.

　　The 2024 Smart City Exhibition - Taipei Pavilion opened to the public at Hall 2 of the Nangang Exhibition Center on March 19th. The opening ceremony was led by Mayor Wan-An Chiang of Taipei City, and Commissioner Shih-Lung Chao of Taipei City Department of Information Technology. The city officials held the three torches representing major visions, illuminating Taipei's symbols of becoming the Capital of Safety, Sports, and the Future. The Taipei Pavilion is themed “AI-Driven- Future Taipei” and is divided into three main exhibition areas, incorporating sports elements to build up hype for the upcoming World Masters Games 2025 Taipei & New Taipei City.  Additionally, Mayor Wan-An Chiang  and the AI avatar “Metaverse Mayor” took to the stage, becoming the focal point of the event. The real and virtual dual offered a cross-dimensional experience for visitors exploring the infinite possibilities of Taipei's smart city innovation services.　　On the same day, Taipei City Mayor Wan-An Chiang, and Selangor State Administrative Councilor Sihan Huang, witnessed the signing of a memorandum of cooperation between the Commissioner of Department of Information Technology, Taipei City Government and the Chief Executive Officer of Selangor State's Information Technology and Digital Economy Agency (Sidec). The Selangor delegation's participation in the 2024 Smart City Expo is expected to deepen bilateral exchanges and cooperation, with hopes for further enhancement of collaboration.　　For this year’s exhibition, MomentX has been invited to integrate Microsoft's ChatGPT technology in the development of AI virtual tour guide “Metaverse Mayor” and the virtual tour scene, “AI Taipei Navigation Station”. The appearance of the “Metaverse Mayor” is created by using Aemass 3D Cloud Map AI algorithm, capturing Mayor Chiang's holographic image and enabling real-time interaction and Q&A with the virtual avatar. The “AI Taipei Navigation Station” utilizes Mixed Reality (MR) technology, in collaboration with OURSTEAM International, to provide citizens with an immersive interactive tour experience, injecting a wealth of future technological energy into the exhibition.　　After the opening ceremony, Mayor Chiang toured and visited the various innovative municipal services displayed at the venue. Additionally, the “Capital of Future” exhibition areas showcased numerous innovations. They include the Taipei CooC-Cloud AI Smart Teaching Assistance Platform - the CooC AI system which supplements the rich and diversified teaching resources of the city. The Network Transit Display System(NTDS) of Taipei Metro provides real-time integration for the entire metro network's status. Smart pharmacies improve medication service efficiency to enhance healthcare for citizens. Taipei buses have also integrated the ADAS advanced driving assistance systems, boosting driving safety with access to AI smart networks. 　　Among the displays, the “Capital of Sports” exhibition area serves as a rich source of information on the World Masters Games 2025 Taipei & New Taipei City, hoping to boost public participation in the upcoming international competition. From now through April 17, there's a 30% early bird registration discount for those interested. The exhibition also spotlights multi-functional sports training equipment integrating AI and big data, which we invite everyone to try out and join the ranks of individuals exercising on a regular basis.Furthermore, at the “Capital of Safety” zone, users witnessed how city hall promote a new “vision” for emergency medical services by utilizing 5G technology to improve the pre-hospital emergency service disposal rate in remote areas. With the approach of rainy season, the “Taipei Hydraulic Engineering Office (TaipeiHEO)” provides real-time water situation information search services, offering citizens a convenient channel to access rainfall, river water levels, stormwater sewer levels, and other information through LINE app, creating a communication and response channel for disaster prevention in real-time.The smart water meter application service enables autonomous management and water usage alerts for citizens, providing convenient and user-friendly services.For those who don't want to miss this exhibition, the Taipei City Department of Information Technology will use its Facebook page to bring smart city technology and convenience to all online viewers during the exhibition period. Taipei City Government Exhibition InformationDate: From March 19 (Tuesday) to March 22 (Friday)Time: 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM (closes at 5:00 PM on March 22)Location: Booth P1033 on the 1st floor of Hall 2 at Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center (Taipei Pavilion)Department of Information Technology, Taipei City Government Facebook pageFor more information on Taipei Smart City exhibition cases