ICT solutions to challenge problems in local cities 3/4Fujieda City: Inviting the influx of population by IoT

by Takehiko Kato, Chief Fellow

LPWA Network

Fujieda City is with population of 147,000 and located almost center of Shizuoka Prefecture. They have been keeping No. 1 position in Shizuoka Prefecture during 5 successive years in the area of social increase of population (Influx of population is more than outflow), and the city is very lively with the increase of people of 1500 during 5 years from 2010 to 2015. The City announced the policy of inviting the influx of population by ICT and in May this year they became pioneer of open tender for experimental test of IoT (Internet of Things) platform. Before the tender they have signed with Softbank in April the Comprehensive Partnership Agreement for the utilization of advanced ICT. Based on this agreement they deployed in total city area the wide-area wireless LAN based on LPWA (Low Power Wide Area) Network.

In order to vitalize regional economy and to improve the service quality for the citizens they were trying to see how Wireless LAN can be best used in the actual service and how IoT can be effectively used and promoted. So they announced the open tender for possible cases to be experimented in the wireless LAN system in May.

Experimental Test in open tender

The open tender was closed with 11 successful bidders and projects for possible experimental test. Projects started from August for 3 years. They also announced the separate tender for experimental test for public themes such as theme to serve for safer and securer life of citizens, theme to improve public services, theme to vitalize the local industry and to solve local problems. This separate tender is limited only for such themes as directly associated with the public service, but, with subsidies to the successful bidder.

They set up in March this year “Fujieda ICT Consortium” by 82 companies and associations of local enterprises, financial institutes, universities and so on.

They also made cooperation with the adjacent city of Shimada to establish ICT Promotion Council to progress the cooperation in wide-area of ICT utilization. 

3 Purposes

There are 3 purposes why Fujieda City is promoting ICT.

The first purpose is for education of next generation human resources. They deploy humanoid robot “Pepper” at 27 elementary and junior high schools and employ programming education in the daily lessons. They are opening the training courses for ICT experts for high school students and over. They are offering possible chances for younger generation to actually have experience with ICT and expecting such younger generation to become ICT resources in higher demands in the future.

The second purpose is for development and growth of local industry. They are promoting the use of ICT among SME (Small and Medium Enterprises) and agriculture sector. Based on the possible experience through execution of projects awarded this time they are trying to create new business opportunities with IoT system with sensors.

The third purpose is for reform of work style. They are aiming to improve the productivity of work with more flexibility of working time and place for workers and to increase the employment or recruitment opportunities for potential workers such as female workers during child care and care leavers by improving the cloud sourcing to assist them.

IoT platform is actively utilized or planned for utilization by Fujieda City themselves to improve the quality of public services. The city government is now designing Electronic Watching System with accelerometer for pupils on the way to and from school (Location service and confirmation of status of to and from school).

It is expected that the challenge of Fujieda City to utilize advanced ICT as above would be spreading widely to other local cities in Japan, so its future development is worth monitoring.