'Seoul Digital Citizen Market Office' Leading Global Communication Amid the COVID-19 Disaster

Mayor Park Won-soon holds over 20 video conferences with overseas city mayors to share K-Quarantine
Combining administrative big data + advanced ICT technology... Leading the contactless and untact era

Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon is holding a video conference on March 27 with working-level officials from 45 countries around the world for joint response to COVID-19.

[Asia Economy Reporter Jo In-kyung] The Seoul Metropolitan Government introduced the 'Digital Citizen Mayor's Office,' a smart city platform that combines tens of thousands of administrative big data with cutting-edge ICT technology, which has played a key role as a global dialogue channel during the worldwide disaster phase of the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19).

According to Seoul on the 17th, Mayor Park Won-soon held a 'COVID-19 Joint Response Video Conference' on March 27 with mayors from 45 cities in 31 countries that are members of C40. On April 17, he also held a video seminar with mayors of major cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sydney, as well as the global startup accelerator 'Plug and Play Tech Center.'

In addition, there were individual video meetings this month with the vice president of Colombia, as well as mayors of Athens, Istanbul, and Tehran.

A city official explained, "The advantage of video conferences through the Digital Citizen Mayor's Office is that participants can join interactive video meetings with just a smartphone or laptop, without any special equipment or devices," adding, "Communication was possible without spatial constraints, transcending borders and time zones, reaching participants as far as South America, on the opposite side of the globe from Seoul."

Since its introduction in 2017, the Digital Citizen Mayor's Office has evolved continuously, consolidating scattered data to provide a real-time, comprehensive view of all urban phenomena occurring in Seoul, thereby enhancing the efficiency of major decision-making.

Starting with about 10 million administrative big data records at the time of introduction, the content has been significantly enhanced to now include 32 million big data records and 300 million source data records. Video information from approximately 2,800 closed-circuit (CC) TVs throughout Seoul can also be checked instantly with a single touch in the mayor's office, allowing situation assessment without physically visiting the scene during emergencies.

Technology has also evolved, equipping the system with touchscreens, voice and video call functions to directly connect to the field and issue work instructions. From this year, video conferencing functionality has been added.

The Digital Citizen Mayor's Office attracted significant attention at 'CES 2020,' the world's largest consumer electronics show, which Seoul participated in for the first time in January this year. It was installed on the front of the 'Seoul Pavilion' in its original size, and Mayor Park personally demonstrated it, drawing the attention of many visitors.

Since April last year, Seoul has made the information available to all citizens so that anyone can view the same information as the mayor. All content, except for personal information, is accessible on large screens at three major transfer stations?Hongdaeipgu Station, Yeouido Station, and Changdong Station?as well as on PCs and mobile devices (http://scpm.seoul.go.kr, http://mayor.seoul.go.kr).

Going forward, Seoul plans to continuously expand the content displayed through the Digital Citizen Mayor's Office and update functions such as video conferencing to be utilized comprehensively across all work areas.

Mayor Park said, "As we experience COVID-19, digitalization of our society is accelerating and non-face-to-face, untact methods are becoming normalized. The Digital Citizen Mayor's Office, which consolidates Seoul's smart city technology, has emerged as a global communication channel," adding, "We will continue sustainable innovation to make citizens' lives more convenient and establish this platform as a network connecting cities within one planet more closely."

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