The city presented 16 research projects concerning urban public informatization, which aims to invite participation by IT talents from all walks of life, according to today's China Daily.

The Informatization Office of the Shanghai Municipal People's Government and Shanghai Municipal Internet Economy Consulting Centre jointly select the 16 projects and will take charge of administrative work for the various research teams to be organized.

According to Vice-Director of the Informatization Office He Shouchang, this innovative practice, the first of its kind, helps the city speed up the informatization process, along with aid from the public.

"We carry out research projects this way to converge different opinions, innovation and methodology and provide e-solutions to the city's infrastructure," said He.

Officials from the Internet Economy Consulting Centre revealed that the files and results of the 16 projects will be stored for future strategic planning concerning information and communication industries.

The filtering process used to select the IT talents will proceed in a fair and open way, according to officials.

Experts, scholars and insiders from the government, universities and enterprises will form a panel of judges.

The panel will vote for all of the candidates in the first round of selection. Members of the research team will be generated solely by the voting results.

In the month after the vote, the candidates chosen from the first round will submit detailed plans for executing the research projects.

The panel then will evaluate each plan and score it for the second time. The scores will determine the budget amount awarded by the government.

"In the formalized selection process, all work is open to criticism, and we welcome Shanghai citizens to monitor our job. Therefore, we hope to create a good atmosphere for implementing the projects," said Zhou Wenbin, vice-director of the Internet Economy Consulting Centre.

Insiders point out that the 16 projects largely fall into four categories£º construction of informatization infrastructure, industrialization of information, tendency and opportunities of the new technology concerning communication and information, and evaluation standards of informatization.

"Those categories are crucial to the city's economic and social development," said Zhou.

According to experts at the meeting held by the office, the industrialization of information is especially important to the city's development.