Peking University, Oct.22, 2011: On the afternoon of October 21, the session B with the theme of “sustainability issues” raised the curtain at News Hall of Yingjie Exchange Center, Peking University (PKU). In this session, scholars from all over the world shared their opinions upon sustainable development and mega cities’ issues.

 

 

 

Professor Thiam Soo Tan from the National University of Singapore pointed out that mega cities around the world now face severe problems such as resource supply and environment pressure. Therefore it’s imperative for people to address these problems. He took Singapore as an example to show the city’s efforts to handle these issues and realize sustainable development.

 

Afterwards, Mr. Hui Su from IBM China illustrated sustainability issues from the different point of Internet-of-Things. He held the view that applications of the Internet would help us solve problems like traffic jams efficiently. More importantly, the whole IT network will play the role of the immune system of the city so that it can provide some early alerts before a problem becomes too serious.

 

Another issue that has been discussed was future transportation. With an increasing number of cars, human beings face the severe issue of global warming which can be attributed to increasingly more carbon dioxide emission. So it’s high time that industries looked for cleaner and safer fuels, in which way the transportation must be also altered. Some alternatives are already available such as electricity and hydrogen. However, there is still a long way to go.

 

In addition, it has also been mentioned that universities around the world should establish a Ph.D. program for sustainability issues to encourage students to embrace the latest technologies and work on those worldwide problems. Scholars from all over the world shared the opinion that it’s really worth the efforts to address sustainability issues.

 

Reported by: Liao Songyuan

Edited by: Arthars