The Tainan City Government held the final selection and awards ceremony for the "2022 Tainan AI Smart City, Talent Co-creation Application Hackathon" at the C-Hub National Cheng Kung University Creative Base today (26th). Tainan Deputy Mayor Chao Ching-hui presented awards to six winning teams: "AI-Driven Innovation in Historical Site Tourism and Services in Smart Cultural Parks," "AI-Powered Dengue Fever Hotspot Prediction System for Patrol and Cleaning Detection," "Tainan's Fun Little Helper," "More Effective Detection – Detection of Road Surface Defects Based on SOAda-YOLOR," "Like Water Flowing into a Ravine: Smart City Pedestrian Flow Prediction Technology Optimizes Tourism Experience and API Streaming System," and "Tainan City Pedestrian Flow Early Warning." The atmosphere was lively, showcasing the passion and ambition of technical talents for public affairs, the diverse dialogue among citizens in municipal governance, and the infinite possibilities of combining technology with cultural innovation.
Deputy Mayor Zhao stated that, unlike past hackathons which typically lasted only 1-2 days, the Tainan City Government pioneered a new approach by incorporating past experiences from projects such as the "Flying Goose New Village Open Decision-Making," the "New Municipal Center Open Decision-Making," and the "Nanshan Cemetery Open Decision-Making," as well as the participatory budgeting practices implemented by various township offices, into the planning of this hackathon. This allowed the entire event to develop and mature over nearly four months, including two workshops for proposal training, one session for equal exchange between proposers and problem solvers, and multiple online tool tutorials. This ensured that the final problem-solving proposals had significant value and quality. Furthermore, the government's computing resources were opened for practical verification, providing teams with sufficient resources to implement and validate AI applications. Participants also gained a deeper understanding of government operations through the process. Tainan is an old city with a 400-year history, boasting rich cultural and tourism resources, but also facing many related problems, such as narrow streets causing difficulties in transportation and epidemic prevention. The various projects utilize drones, AI image recognition, and other technologies in their application to predict and manage pedestrian and vehicle traffic, conduct intelligent maintenance of public facilities, and prevent infectious disease hotspots. Today's final selection marks the end of the event but is the beginning of action, encouraging more proactive implementation and application in the future to make Tainan a better place.
The Tainan City Government, in collaboration with ASUS Group and National Cheng Kung University, hosted the "2022 Tainan AI Smart City, Talent Collaboration Technology Application Hackathon." This pioneering event combined participatory budgeting principles to openly explore issues in Tainan City's three major areas: "Smart Epidemic Prevention," "Smart Tourism," and "Smart Transportation." It called upon startups, students, industry professionals, and private companies to form teams and propose solutions using AI smart applications. Utilizing open data and cloud resources, the event focused on developing the best solutions. The six winning teams received certificates of excellence and were sponsored by ASUS Group, each receiving NT$500,000 worth of Taiwan AI Cloud (TWCC) platform services, 2TB of ASUS Cloud storage per person per year, and opportunities for job matching with ASUS Group or collaboration with the Tainan City Government on AI smart applications.
Tai Wei-Chun, Chairman of the Research, Development and Evaluation Committee, stated that the Ministry of Digital Development of the Executive Yuan was established in August of this year, marking the official start of the era of digital governance in Taiwan. The Tainan City Government is actively promoting various smart city projects. The teams selected in this event have used the latest AI cloud technology to strengthen system integration and application. These innovative applications will bring inspiration and energy to Tainan City's digital construction. The city government will continue to cooperate across departments and collaborate with the private sector to ensure that creative ideas take root and become nourishment for the development of smart cities.
The 10 projects selected for practical verification in this event include: "AI-Driven Innovation in Historical Site Tourism and Services in Smart Cultural Parks," "Application of Computer Vision in Smart Transportation and Net-Zero Carbon Emissions," "Object Recognition in Road Damage Detection," "3D Drone AI Smart Inspection Cloud Platform," "AI Dengue Fever Hotspot Prediction and Patrol Detection System," "Tainan Fun Helper," "More Effective Detection – Detection of Road Surface Defects Based on SOAda-YOLOR," "Tainan In-Depth Itinerary Planning," "Like Water Flowing into a Ravine: Smart City Pedestrian Flow Prediction Technology Optimizes Tourism Experience and API Streaming System," and "Tainan City Pedestrian Flow Early Warning." The initial proposal participants included city government staff and the general public, while the project and practical verification participants included industry professionals, university students, and teams composed of both. The aim is to leverage the platform provided by the city government to more effectively match and utilize the needs of the public and the technological resources of industry and academia, and to innovate solutions to overcome urban governance challenges.