Following is the speech by the Secretary for Innovation and Technology, Mr Nicholas W Yang, at the Big Data Governance Launch Event organised by the Institute of Big Data Governance (iBDG) this morning (August 5):
Allen (Founding Chairman of the iBDG, Mr Allen Yeung), Herbert (Vice Chairman of the iBDG, Mr Herbert Chia), distinguished guests, friends, ladies and gentlemen,
Good morning. It is a great honour and pleasure for me to join you at this Big Data Governance Launch Event. First of all, I would like to congratulate the Institute of Big Data Governance on launching this important initiative to promote the data governance standard for Hong Kong enterprises.
Global technology advancement has transformed the role and importance of communication and data, anytime, anywhere. This has led to the dramatic evolution of data in terms of variety, volume and velocity. According to a recent market research, it is predicted that the global datasphere will grow from 33 zettabytes in 2018 to 175 zettabytes by 2025. Just imagine, with each sand particle counting as one byte, one zettabyte equals to the total number of sand on all the beaches in the world. Moreover, nearly 30 per cent of the world's data will need real-time processing. Today, data have far-reaching implications for individuals, businesses, and even the Government because data can provide invaluable insights to facilitate decision-making. As such, the capability to process and analyse large volume of data becomes the key to staying ahead of the competition.
In Hong Kong, the Government has made a strong commitment to develop innovation and technology. One focused area is to open up government data.
In October 2018, the Government announced the new open data policy requiring all government bureaux and departments to release their data in machine-readable formats for free public use, while protecting personal privacy. In December 2018, all government departments released their first-ever annual open data plans. In just eight-months' time since this new open data policy was unveiled, we have already opened up 500-plus new datasets by June 2019, and we are confident that our target of at least 4 000 open datasets can be met by the end of this year. At the same time, we have provided over 1 200 Application Programming Interfaces to enable the industry and the public to use the open data to develop innovative applications for the community.
In addition to open government data, we have been encouraging public and private organisations to open up their data that carry a high degree of public interest. Public transport operators, such as the New World First Bus, the Citybus, the New Lantao Bus and the MTR Corporation, have all responded positively to this call. They will begin open up their real-time arrival data by the end of this month. This is a very important step forward in pursuing our smart mobility development.
Since the publication of the Smart City Blueprint for Hong Kong in December 2017, the 70-plus specifically listed initiatives have all made good progress. We are building a Next Generation Government Cloud Infrastructure, which will facilitate government departments in their digital transformation projects. Riding on this cloud infrastructure, we are developing a Big Data Analytics Platform to facilitate sharing of real-time trend data, ranging from traffic to weather and environmental data. These infrastructure initiatives will unleash the potential of big data for more effective and efficient city management.
Big Data Governance standards will certainly play a pivotal role in Hong Kong's transition to become an international data hub. I salute to the Institute of Big Data Governance for taking the big bold step forward via today's event.
On this note, I sincerely wish today's event a great success and all participants an enjoyable and rewarding experience. Thank you very much.
