2017 Volume 67 Issue 11 Pages 566-572
Aizuwakamatsu City, Fukushima Prefecture, is collaborating with Accenture on a smart city project aiming to develop new big data/analytics industry in the region. This article introduces the uniqueness of the smart city project, as well as its future vision. The key factors of the city's initiative are organizations, human resources and data infrastructure with the University of Aizu playing a vital role in collaborating with the city and Accenture. As various pilot projects are conducted on Aizuwakamatsu's journey to becoming a smart city, it is attracting an increasing number of companies, talents and industries. The city aims to tackle challenging issues like open governance, privacy concerns and competitiveness, to accelerate the smart city initiatives and eventually expand them into other regions.
