Shanghai is upgrading the standards of its city-level Shanghai QR code, or Suishenma, which has been used as a colored health code for COVID-19, to cover a wider category and optimize daily life services.

The applications may include disabled people's parking, hospital queuing and net café registration in the future, Shanghai Daily learned.

Currently, the Shanghai QR code, with millions of resident users, is widely used as a one-stop for services in hospital, transportation, culture and tourism, and urban management.

The city code system is focusing on the three goals of "high-quality development, high-quality life, and high-performance governance," which will be widely and easily accessed and used everywhere in the city, said Shanghai Big Data Center, the developer of the code.

To achieve these targets, the center is holding its first innovation contest, inviting developers to design applications for the code system. It received over 200 applications and awarded the final winners, mainly covering help for the elderly and disabled, smart campuses, medical and health care, urban governance and other areas, according to the center.

Among the top awards is an application designed by a fifth-grade primary school student. She designed an application to manage parking slots for disabled people, who can be identified by the code. Another app is a queuing system for hospitals, which can balance limited medical resources. Another app is a registration system in communities, net cafés and hotels, which allows people to enter by showing the code only, instead of needing keys or ID cards.

In the future, the center will upgrade the Shanghai QR code system in three directions, covering personal services, enterprise services including "digital business cards," and city infrastructure information, such as inquiries for public infrastructure, road traffic, park and culture building.

Up to now, Shanghai's QR system has been widely used in daily life. It now covers over 400 public hospitals and 1,442 pharmacies citywide, 1,560 public transportation lines and culture sites including the Shanghai Library.