The 2021 Shared Open Data Innovation Contest (SODiC) kicked off in Shenzhen on the afternoon of April 20.

Themed“Future cities, smart GBA,” the contest invites talents in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) and across the globe to submit ideas on future city scenarios and solutions to achieve coordinated development of the GBA cities.

As one of the three co-organizers of this year’s SODiC, Longhua District is providing full support to ensure the success of the event. Meanwhile, it is committed to seize the opportunity to further explore the paths of building a pilot district of digital economy and advance its experiments for future city scenarios.

Longhua will provide support to the contest from three aspects: contest promotion, contest operation, and winning project matchmaking.

This year’s SODiC is divided into a category for the general public and a category for professionals in the fields of big data, artificial intelligence, smart cities and the like. In addition to hosting some sub-category contests of the professional category, Longhua will also host all of the three sub-category contests of the general public category, which includes a painting contest for first to third graders, a story-telling contest for third to sixth graders, and a writing contest for all. Several training sessions for participating professional teams will also be held here.

To further publicize the contest, Longhua will organize a forum on future city scenarios, inviting government officials and experts in the field to share philosophies and practices in digital city development. It will also co-organize a winning project sharing session as well as exhibitions of outstanding projects.

In term of winning project matchmaking, Longhua willhelp organize a matchmaking event and invite government officials, high-tech enterprises and investors to contact with the winning teams.

Longhua is ready to seize the opportunities brought by the SODiC to further explore the paths of building a pilot district of digital economy and advance its experiments for future city scenarios.

At a press conference held by the Shenzhen Municipal Government Information Office in November 2020, Wang Wei, secretary of the CPC Longhua District Committee, announcedthe district’s commitment to build itself into a pilot district of digital economy. Three months later, Lei Weihua, district mayor of Longhua, announced the district’s plan to carry out district-wide experiments for future city scenarios.

Both of the two plans coincide with the aim of this year’s SODiC, which is to further tap data resources, encourage the integrated application of open and social data, and promote the development of digital economies, societies, governments and smart cities.

Surrounded by mountains on three sides and with the Guanlan River running through the district, Longhua, a young and vibrant district with innovative strengths, offers a unique ecological environment for future city scenario experiments. The vast land here and its plans to roll out a batch of high-level projects such as the Shenzhen North Railway Station International Business District also provides unparalleled opportunities for such experiments.

In SODiC’s professional category contest, participating teams will choose a specific future city scenario and come up solutions or algorithm models to tackle a specific problem in that scenario. These solutions and algorithm models may provide insights to Longhua’s application of digital technology in its eight major application scenarios, namely the Shenzhen North Railway Station International Business District, Luhu Central Town, Jiulongshan Digital Town, Guanlan River, Longhua Boulevard, Dalang Fashion Town, Longhua Talent Block and Guanlan Culture Town.

As a fast-developing district, Longhua eagerly welcomes outstanding individuals and teams that would help to address the difficulties itmay encounter in the process of development. For talents that stand out from this year’s SODiC, Longhua will roll out a series of measures to encourage them to settle and launch new projects in Longhua.