Smart cities development is an emerging important research and development (R&D) direction, both locally and internationally, as evidenced in the 2016 Policy Address and 2017 Policy Address of the Hong Kong government, thrust of activities organized by the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers (HKIE), its identification as a main R&D theme of the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation, etc.

It is strategically important for Hong Kong to establish a university-based platform to develop research capabilities, educate professionals, and interface and work closely with governments, both locally and those in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Bay area, relevant industries and NGOs for smart cities development. We strongly believe the GREAT Smart Cities Institute will be able to coalesce experts and professionals from a broad range of disciplines and institutional backgrounds, leading to the creation of tremendous opportunities for collaborative research and technology transfer activities.

The GREAT Smart Cities Institute focuses on advancing five GREAT attributes of smart cities development, namely Green, Resilient, Empowering, Adaptable, and Transformative, as described as follows: (1) Green: cities planned with due considerations for life-cycle environmental impacts, natural resources consumption (e.g. air, water, energy, materials) and wastes generation and treatment; (2) Resilient: cities developed with infrastructure capacities and system redundancies to manage disruptions without severely affecting their essential functioning; (3) Empowering: cities designed for people, empowering wellbeing, efficiency, innovation, and productive partnerships; (4) Adaptable: cities designed with their infrastructure and systems adaptable to changes in new technology (e.g. autonomous vehicles) and global warming; and (5) Transformative: cities designed for empowering their institutions and citizens to define and reposition their growth directions and strategies.

I encourage and anticipate your active participation via this platform to promote and establish collaborative research and development activities to make our cities GREAT. And I look forward to working with you to do GREAT things together.

Prof Hong K. LO
Director of GREAT Smart Cities Institute