IBM-powered portal to take 300m Chinese residents 'into the cloud'
A Chinese technology company has enlisted the help of IBM to build a cloud computing platform that will eventually connect 300 million people to a wide range of “citizen livelihood” services and information.
Yi Lian Zhong Information Technology (YLZ), plans to expand its existing services in Fujian Province to residents across seven more Chinese provinces. The cloud platform to be build with IBM’s System z will connect various networks of urban and rural residents, government departments, social service providers, medical institutions, corporate and public organizations and vocational schools.
The project is aimed to help meet the Chinese government’s 12th five-year-plan for improving citizen well being.
According to IBM, its System z mainframe can scale easily, which will help YLZ manage the unpredictable nature of transaction peaks and valleys without incurring additional costs.
The cloud services platform will be offered through new kiosks to be installed across selected communities at civic centers, hospitals, banks and shopping malls. Kiosk users will be able to swipe their social insurance identity cards, which are already connected to banks, to access the additional services offered by various government departments. They can also use their ID cards to settle service payments. The system will allow residents in rural areas to access the same services as residents in cities.
Among the services the portal will support:
- Payment of social insurance contributions and utilities, account transfers, medical fee reimbursements, and medical and unemployment benefits.
- Access to information about job and training opportunities.
- Services for scheduling clinical appointments, self-service medical fee settlement, case referral and group diagnosis.
- Access to farming subsidies, including farmer-based subsistence allowances, seed subsidies and fuel subsidies for rural vehicles.
- Support for distributing aid for disabled people, verifying of low-cost housing applications and providing education-related services.
