SMART CITY STRATEGY
SeongNam is the best city in South Korea. First, SeongNam is considered as the Silicon Valley of Korea. We have 62 thousands’ corporations, while the city population is 960 thousands. Many of them are knowledge-based service and contents. Second, we have a high-tech industry special zone named Pangyo. It is specialized in fourth industrial revolution, such as in robotics, AI, etc. In fact, Pangyo zone was ubiquitous experimental city in 2000’s. Now, we are trying to build the leading SMART CITY of Asia thanks to the participation in the “Synchronicity” project.
CITY CHALLENGES
There are two perspectives concerning our city challenges:
- From a detailed perspective, first, we aim to solve parking issues in the city Lack of parking areas and high price cause quarrels, such as illegal parking, the dispute between car owners and other safety problems. For this reason, we aim to develop parking-notifying service based on IoT technology. Resolving parking issue in the city and improving the quality of public life are our first goals.
- Second, while carrying out this project we can get technology information, system standards and patents that are useful for developing IoT services. We are planning to share them with the people who are interested in IoT services in our region. We are going to develop a testbed for parking service based on IoT and share all the data. It would be very useful because we use and connect generic technology such as one M2M and FIWARE, which is used for developing IoT-based services in the testbed. As a result, the city will have a systematic developing infrastructure based on IoT solutions.
CONTRIBUTIONS OF IOT SOLUTIONS TO SOLVE THE CITY CHALLENGES
First, we live in a big data era, but it is difficult to have access to the vast amount of data. For example, when you look at solving parking problems the main issue is that we do not know exactly where the space to park the car is located. But, IoT solutions make it possible to get information in real-time on parking slots available. IoT systems connect all the objects around us, and we can manage them via a single control center.
Second, through the collected information, we expect big data processing for city policy to be established in a better and easy way, such as in the context of environmental issues, traffic issues, public order, welfare, and so on. City decision makers will be able to reduce policy problems by using IoT solutions.
Third, IoT develops enhanced business models for smart cities. After building the system, cities can find many new ideas, technologies, and services in it. This strengthens our city industrial competitiveness and can generate new jobs for many people.
RELEVANCE FOR THE CITIZENS
There is no doubt that new technologies make our lives better. Smart City technology constitutes an alternative to solve many problems in urban life. IT is important for the citizens that SeongNam could solve the parking slot issues in its city.
Furthermore, the successful construction of a smart city can support and enhance the work of several industrial companies, especially in the fields of game, smart factory, online-network (Internet, 4G, 5G), and so on. The ultimate goal is to create a high-tech city in SeongNam.
SEONGNAM KEY ACTIVITIES
First, SeongNam Industry Promotion Agency, has pushed ahead of the “Development of a SMART CITY based on local innovation” project. The main goal is the implementation of a ‘SMART CITY’ by identifying tasks for commercialization. For this reason, we link people in various fields, such as civic groups, ordinary citizens, businesses, and intellectuals and let them freely suggest and discuss ideas. We support up to 100,000$ in commercialization funds for 4 companies that offer excellent ideas.
Second, our city has brought a lot of policy attention to the networking connection based on the internet for the city. In 2000’s we attempted to create a ubiquitous city. As a result, we have created the public information communication network, which will be now used for developing the SeongNam ‘SMART CITY’. Our final goal is to fulfill the ideal of the modern city dweller, who pursues the convenience provided by city and information and communication technology and nature-friendly life. Plus, we want to create a well balanced urban development by effectively connecting the old-downtown and the new downtown.
Third, IoT is a key point for the fourth industrial revolution. And from a broad perspective, Start-up business plays an important role in developing innovative technologies in our city. For this reason, we aim to establish a business foundation for the first support system in the public sector in South Korea. We provide business-space with no cost, mentoring, education, the opportunity for \investor Relations, overseas training, even copy-machine and paper for free. This approach supports user to develop technologies for the city. Through our efforts, we expect to attract companies leading the fourth industry to collaborate more with the city in the near future.
WANT TO KNOW MORE?
Moon Hye Soo
City Representative: Seongnam
