Seoul 'Magok Smart City Living Lab' Project Receives 70 Million Won Support for 5 Cases

Citizens, Experts, and Companies Collaborate to Solve Urban Issues
Demonstration Using 4th Industrial Revolution Technologies

Magok District Bird's-eye View

[Asia Economy Reporter Jo In-kyung] Seoul City announced on the 12th that it will actively promote the 'Magok Smart City Living Lab project,' where citizens, experts, and companies collaboratively solve urban problems and experiment and verify new technologies of the 4th Industrial Revolution in the Magok district. This year, it plans to support a total of five new projects, each with a budget of around 70 million KRW.

The Living Lab is a citizen-participatory research approach in which experts and citizens participate throughout the entire process, 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 actively utilizes the information and communication network infrastructure and public facilities within the Magok district (such as Magok Square and Seoul Botanic Park) for experimentation and verification.

This public contest allows participation from organizations, institutions, small and medium-sized enterprises, and consortia located in Seoul that can solve one of the designated tasks (health, transportation, environment) proposed by Seoul City through technology using the Living Lab method.

In March, Seoul City conducted an online survey targeting residents and workers in the Magok district about inconveniences experienced or issues they wished to be resolved while active in Magok, discovering three task areas: ▲ 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.

Organizations wishing to participate in the Living Lab can propose the execution process and solutions by utilizing core technologies related to the 4th Industrial Revolution such as artificial intelligence, big data, IoT, 5G+, smart manufacturing, intelligent robots, system semiconductors, future automobiles, biohealth, service platforms, immersive content, smart city, blockchain, etc. to address these designated tasks.

The city will support the selected five project-performing organizations with the necessary research funds and mentoring throughout the Living Lab process. Applications can be submitted online by registering as a corporate member on the Seoul Business Agency (SBA) website (www.sba.seoul.kr) and submitting the project application and execution plan by the 1st of next month.

Kim Seon-soon, Director 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 due to its smart infrastructure," adding, "We will actively support citizens, experts, and companies to experiment and verify various smart city-related technologies together to improve citizens' quality of life."

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