On October 26, 2022, the Globalisation and Development (GAD) Programme had the honour to invite Dr. Fangxin Yi, research fellow at the School of Social Development and Public Policy of Beijing Normal University of China, delivering a lecture on “Smart City and Digital Public Administration”.

In this lecture, Dr. Yi reviewed the global characteristics, policy, and technology development of smart cities and introduced new trend in smart cities development. She also discussed the key terms and technologies in smart cities and elaborate on how digital governance work in the developing world. Finally, she envisaged the future development of digital public administration.

During the Q&A session, moderated by Dr. Edoardo Monaco (GAD Associate Professor and Associate Head of the Department of Social Sciences) and Dr. Shuang Wu (GAD Assistant Professor), students and faculties from GAD programme raised questions about the specific methods of digital public administration, the involvement of government in different scenarios of digital public administration, data privacy protection, and sustainable development digital public administration. GAD Y4 students Mr. Zhang Qifan, Miss Guo Shurui, and Mr. Ke Shenghan proposed questions and conducted in-depth discussion with Dr. Yi.

Responding to audiences’ questions with concrete examples and professional interpretation, Dr. Yi shared her experiences as both an urban planner and a research scholar in actual digital public administration work. She also expressed her will of further collaboration with GAD programme and DSS department as whole to contribute to future digital governance research.