Those of you who have visited Hangzhou will know that it is one of the most beautiful cities in China with the stunning West Lake as one the city’s key attractions. Hangzhou plays a key role in Cisco’s innovation and research and development strategy for China, with one of our main R&D campuses based in the city. Hangzhou is also home to Insigma, a global strategic IT services and solution provider that works with leading companies around the world. Insigma collaborates closely with Zhejiang University, one of China’s oldest and most prestigious universities, based in Hangzhou. The city was therefore the perfect setting today to announce a strategic collaboration with Insigma which will deepen Cisco’s expertise in Smart+Connected Communities (S+CC) in China.
Hangzou West Lake
As part of the collaboration, Cisco and Insigma have made a strategic investment in City Cloud International Co., Ltd., a company that will help scale the devopment of S+CC in China using intelligent networks to deliver new, platform-based cloud services across the country. Cisco has a strong collaboration with Insigma on S+CC; the company announced its smart city strategy at the Cisco Pavilion at the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai.
China’s urban population will expand to the 1 billion mark by 2030 with 350 million added to the urban population by 2025. The country will have 221 cities with a population of more than a million. I’m Dutch, and to put that in perspective, the whole of Europe has only 35 such cities today. 5 billion square meters of road will be paved. 5 million buildings will be built of which 50,000 could be skyscrapers – the equivalent of constructing up to ten New York cities. This unprecedented pace of urbanization in China is accompanied by rapid growth in the adoption of technology: video-on-demand traffic; the Internet of Things and data passing through the cloud. Cisco estimates that by 2016, China will be the second highest IP-traffic generating country in the world.
At Cisco, we truly believe technology will play a key enablement role in the achievement of China’s ambitious goals, as outlined in the 12th Five Year Plan. Sustainable urbanization, access to healthcare for everyone at an affordable cost and educational scaling can only be achieved via technology and new business models such as cloud computing. The future of competition will be between cities. Enabling overall sustainability – economic, social and environmental – using technology, will be integral for cities to develop and prosper.
Madam Jiang Yi, CEO of Insigma Technology Company Ltd. and Owen Chan of Cisco conclude the proceedings
City Cloud International Co., Ltd. will help build Smart+Connected Communities thought leadership, platform and solutions using intelligent networks to deliver public and private services in cities across China. There has been great collaboration between the leadership teams of Insigma, which is backed up by the Zhejiang University, and Cisco led by our Greater China Chairman and CEO, Owen Chan. We are very excited about the innovation we can create for the city of Hangzhou, the province of Zhejiang and the whole of China.
At Cisco, we believe that we are creating a new industry for this next generation of smart+connected communities that will depend upon five key areas: visionary leadership, global open standards, smart regulation, public private partnerships and a new ecosystem. Our collaboration with Insigma through City Cloud International Co., Ltd is a great example of these five key areas coming together.
Meet Muzhi: Early Adopter of Social Media in Greater China
A Client Services Manager based in Shanghai, China, Muzhi is one of the earliest proponents of social media in his country. He became a member of the Cisco Greater China Social Ambassador Program (a company-wide initiative with the goal of increasing the breadth and depth of SME engagement with social media) shortly after it was launched in November 2011. Thereafter, Muzhi joined Sina Weibo (China’s most widely used micro-blogging site akin to a hybrid of Twitter and Facebook) and created a personal Sina blog which he uses for discussions and educating others about technology.
Just a few days ago, Cisco received China’s prestigious “2011 Best Corporate Citizenship Award,” given by 21st Century Business Herald and 21st Century Business Review, two of the country’s major media outlets. The award recognizes Cisco’s corporate social responsibility work in healthcare and education in Sichuan province.
See how Cisco is a good corporate citizen in Sichuan, China
Cisco established the Connecting Sichuan program in 2008 — after a catastrophic earthquake left nearly 5 million residents homeless, killed 70,000 people, destroyed thousands of school buildings, and cut off mobile and land-based communications, including Internet access. Read More »
Every year, the Internet Marketing Committee of China (IMCC) gives out a Golden Award to recognize individuals who have displayed outstanding contributions to the realm of Internet Marketing in Greater China. For 2011, China’s Cisco Interaction Network (CIN) team won the Golden Award, so we wanted to take a moment to highlight their program.
An online initiative launched in China in June 2009, CIN is a communications resource focused upon delivering technology and business content and workshops. Over the past two years, its total registrants have doubled to nearly 42,000 individuals, and workshop attendees have escalated by over 400%, which portrays the fact that an increasing number of Chinese customers are interested in having two-way engagements while learning from technology experts. The program’s efforts were enhanced by online and social media tactics such as quarterly newsletters and consistently communicating with their fans on their Sina Weibo site (China’s most widely used microblogging website akin to a hybrid of Twitter and Facebook).
Why has this program been so well-received by the Chinese market?
