Town in Zhejiang uses digital platform to achieve smart rural governance

Yunlong town in East China's Zhejiang province has achieved smart rural governance with the help of an online mobile platform called Smart Village on Palms. 

By consolidating multiple functions including dispute mediation, the smart phone-based platform presents itself as a sophisticated grassroots governance system enabling villagers to receive legal services at home. 

Connecting with the popular social messaging app WeChat, the platform also allows villagers to easily make their voice heard by the government. So far, villagers have made more than 500 online inquiries on it. 

Meanwhile, the platform has boosted rural self-governance by facilitating villagers' participation in local affairs in various forms like discussions, hearings and administration supervision. 

With more than 600 villagers already registering with the platform, the local government is able to make its services more efficient and convenient by analyzing users' browsing histories and requests. 

To further promote democracy and rule of law in rural areas, the platform allows villagers to watch and take part in live-streamed hearings. 

During one such hearing about a chicken raising-related dispute between two neighboring families, villagers actively joined the judicial officials and legal counsels in contributing collective wisdom to the issue. 

It is through these live-streamed hearings that villagers in Yunlong are learning to use law to solve their problems and disputes.