Seoul City Announces 'Magok Smart City Living Lab Project' Contest... Applications Accepted Until May 1

[Asia Economy Reporter Yuri Kim] The Seoul Metropolitan Government announced on the 12th that it will actively promote the 'Magok Smart City Living Lab Project,' which experiments and verifies new 4th industrial revolution technologies targeting the Magok district to solve urban problems together with citizens, experts, and companies. This year, it plans to support a total of five new projects with about 70 million KRW per project.

A living lab is a citizen-participatory research promotion method in which experts and citizens participate throughout the entire process of the project, from task selection to task verification and result evaluation.

The Magok district is a newly developed complex equipped with infrastructure for creating a smart city, such as ultra-high-speed broadband information and communication networks and an integrated urban operation platform. It is possible to actively utilize the information and communication network infrastructure and public facilities within the Magok district (Magok Square, Seoul Botanic Park, etc.) for experiments and verification.

This Magok Smart Living Lab public project invites participation from executing organizations (organizations, institutions, small and medium enterprises, and consortiums based in Seoul) that can select one of the designated tasks presented by Seoul City, such as health, transportation, and environment, and solve it through technology in a living lab manner. The project must be technology-based, capable of testing and verification research in the Magok district, applying core technologies of the 4th industrial revolution, and proposing the living lab execution process and solutions.

Last month, Seoul City conducted an online survey targeting residents and workers in the Magok district to discover three task areas related to inconveniences experienced or issues they wished to be resolved while active in Magok.

Executing organizations wishing to participate in the living lab can propose solutions to the designated tasks, such as ▲ways to improve transportation convenience within the Magok district ▲ways to improve the environment within the Magok district ▲ways to promote health for workers and residents within the Magok district.

Seoul City will support research funds necessary for the execution process and mentoring for the living lab process for the five project executing organizations to be selected this year for the smart urban environment of the Magok district. Applications for the project can be made through the Seoul Business Agency (SBA) website. The evaluation process consists of the first round of document screening, the second round of presentation screening, and the final selection with contract signing and project fund disbursement. The final selection will consider project feasibility, concreteness of the living lab operation plan, technology development execution plan, and management capability for the living lab method technology development plan.

Kim Seon-soon, Head of the Regional Development Headquarters of Seoul City, said, "The Magok advanced R&D convergence industrial complex is an optimal place for verifying 4th industrial revolution technologies with its smart infrastructure," and added, "We will actively support the Magok Smart City Living Lab Project so that various smart city-related technologies can be experimented and verified."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.