Suga gets serious on a signature policy to speed benefits payments
Japan has taken its latest step to bring government at all levels further into the digital age, stung by the experience of last year's slow rollout of economic stimulus payments.
The parliament on Wednesday enacted six laws to promote electronic government, with steps such as ending a widely criticized source of bureaucratic inefficiency -- the use of seals to sign documents.
Read more: Digital laggard Japan catches up with law against stamping forms
The "Woven City" will eventually be home to 2,000 Toyota employees and their families, retired couples, retailers, and scientists, according to the company.
- Toyota just started construction on a 175-acre smart city at the base of Mount Fuji in Japan.
- The "Woven City" is expected to be a testing ground for technologies like robotics, smart homes, and AI.
- The first residents will be a group of about 360 inventors, young families, and senior citizens.
Digital tools launched in a Japanese smart city that can send disaster alerts to safeguard residents are part of an optional technology push aiming to overcome social and economic challenges, while also allaying privacy fears.
The smartphone alerts were introduced in Aizuwakamatsu city, Fukushima prefecture, last week by consultancy firm Accenture, which has worked with researchers to revitalise the city using technology since a devastating earthquake in 2011.
Read more: Japanese smart city offers residents quake, privacy protection
For a country that has traditionally been attached to paper bureaucracy, Japan is finding Covid-19 is highlighting the importance of digitization to radically transform and modernize public services, from education to health, in order to adapt to the changed circumstances the pandemic has wrought.
Despite a global reputation for impressive technological progress, Japan’s public sector – and a good portion of its private sector – has been slow to embrace the digital era, even as the country’s citizens become keenly aware of the need for the rollout of extensive digital policies.
Despite COVID-19, the new “living laboratory” smart city project broke ground right on schedule, in full view of Mount Fuji, under the watchful eyes of Toyota president Akio Toyoda.
On February 23, Mount Fuji Day, Toyota Motors began construction on a futuristic city in Susono City, Shizuoka Prefecture, at the foot of Japan’s most famous mountain.
Read more: JP: Toyota’s Futuristic ‘Woven City’ to Rise in the Shadow of Mount Fuji