Lawmakers offer digital future proposals

Shanghai is to improve digital applications in the urban management, medical, education and finance sectors, lawmakers said on Monday during the Shanghai People's Congress.

The proposals and advice from the delegates will help Shanghai to consolidate its target to become a digital economy capital with global influence.

A meeting on digital economy capital construction heard from delegates about protecting personal information on public data usage, care for elderly people and bridging the digital divide, establishing a unified data sharing platform among medical organizations, boosting digital transformation in traditional industries, improving the digital talent pool and establishing national AI and fintech labs.

Liu Zhongmin, chairman of Shanghai East Hospital, advised local hospitals to share data. Currently, patients were “isolated islands of information" that forced duplicated checks and diagnoses wasting time and resources.

“With a unified data-sharing platform, patients can enjoy medical services easily and efficiently in different hospitals, even at home with family doctors or online diagnosis,” Liu said.

Delegate Zhang Runbin, chairman of Shanghai Zhisheng Group, called for a better environment for digital talent, covering education, capital, tax and finance.

Universities and colleges should establish more departments to cultivate semiconductor and software talent, said delegate Shi Yibing, Party secretary of the Wonders Information Co. Middle school students are encouraged to learn computer programming, Shi said.

Several lawmakers said the city should have more ways to help older people with digital economy applications and improve the protection of personal information and privacy. 

Data leaks and misuse happened in several industries such as e-commerce and house agencies, they said.

In the next 15 years, Shanghai aims to become an international capital for digitalization and achieve preliminary results for a fully fledged digitalization transformation in urban development. The city is to accelerate the digital transformation of all industry sectors, including manufacturing, scientific and technological research and development, financial services, commercial circulation, shipping logistics, professional services and agriculture, according to a statement published earlier this month.