​Chris Brown has over 20 years of experience in China and the Asia Pacific region, starting with establishing joint ventures in China in 1993 for UK firm, Cherry Valley Farms Ltd.
Chris has subsequently acted as senior policy advisor for the European Union in the areas of trade support, public administration and ICT, most recently driving the ICT Dialogue between the Ministry of Industry & Information Technology (MIIT) and DG Connect focusing on key regulatory issues such as data protection, information security, telecoms, access to government information and most recently Smart Cities.
The EU-China Smart Cities cooperation was set up in May 2013 in Guangzhou. It involves 15 pilot cities from China and the EU run by a technical expert group comprising private sector operators, city leaders and technical experts. To date, the Smart Cities initiative has produced a White Paper for MIIT and a comparative study on Green Smart Cities which was presented at a high-level forum in Beijing in April 2014.
The EU-China Smart Cities initiative is currently identifying emerging challenges and opportunities in smart city projects in specific sectors including construction & architecture; energy; transport; ICT; low carbon; environmental services; and eco cities.
