Science, technological successes celebrated at UNESCO gathering

The UNESCO Creative Cities Beijing Summit, that opened on Thursday and ends on Friday, is highlighting the capital's achievements in forging an innovation center for science and technology.

"By fusing science and technology with culture and cultural creativity, the experience of Beijing … can inspire other cities in our common pursuit of a better urban future," said UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Culture Ernesto Ottone Ramirez.

Since its nomination into UNESCO's Creative Cities Network in the category of design in 2012, Beijing has hosted three UNESCO Creative Cities summits. The first two were held in 2013 and 2016.

Like those events, the third Beijing summit brings together mayors, experts, academia and international, public and private organizations to share and illustrate the power of creativity and innovation in building the cities of tomorrow.

Given the outbreak of COVID-19, this summit takes the development of cities under the post-epidemic era as a starting point. It discusses how to use new technologies to empower culture and creativity, and design more resilient and optimized urban management measures, models and ideas.

"COVID-19 has also highlighted, once again, the importance of cities for development. Even in these trying times, cities have been at the forefront, not only in responding to the pandemic but also as hubs for innovation and creativity to better recover and move forward," Ramirez said.

"Given the growing complexity of cities and urban development, it is becoming increasingly important to strengthen and refine urban management and systems. One key way to do this is to actively utilize advanced and crosscutting technologies such as big data, cloud computing, blockchain and artificial intelligence."

At the summit, UNESCO released the "UNESCO Creative Cities' Response to COVID-19" on Thursday. It includes case studies from more than 90 cities in 44 countries, including Beijing, highlighting how cities have used new technologies and new measures to prevent and control the epidemic and provide culture and education for residents.

"The story from Beijing on the online medical consultation platform for COVID-19 is a good example of how the city's expertise in design and innovation was fully utilized in order to provide a wide range of medical services to local citizens," Ramirez said.

To reduce the risk of cross-infection caused by hospital visits and the pressure on public medical resources, Beijing launched an online medical consultation platform for COVID-19 in early February, which encompassed more than 1,000 doctors and five hospitals in the city.

Taking advantage of information technologies including 5G, artificial intelligence, video communications and remote medical treatment, the platform allows residents to access 24/7 professional guidance of epidemic prevention and medical treatment from doctors without leaving their homes.

"This (Beijing's online medical consultation platform) provides inspiration for other cities on how to nurture and build effective, inclusive and sustainable urban management systems that can generate high-quality outcomes for all inhabitants," Ramirez noted.

In addition, Ramirez showed appreciation for Beijing's cultural creativity industry. He said design is one of Beijing's pillar industries, with a great number of people working in the sector. The city has made great efforts to build itself into a regional and international innovation hub.