Gwanak-gu, Where Does the Evolution of Smart City Development End?

AI, IoT and Other 4th Industrial Revolution Technologies Applied in Various Resident-Centered Projects... Establishment of 'Gwanak-type Living Lab' Comprising Residents and Experts, Accelerating Innovative Smart Projects to Enhance Residents' Quality of Life

Smart Safety Lighting

[Asia Economy Reporter Jongil Park] A man exhibiting suspicious behavior by following women in the one-room apartment dense area around Sillim Station was captured, enabling early detection of emergency situations. At Nakseongdae-dong Community Sports Center, a voice warning is issued when a regular vehicle attempts to park annoyingly in a parking space designated for the disabled.

Gwanak-gu (Mayor Park Junhee) is creating a ‘Smart City Gwanak-gu’ that becomes smarter alongside its residents by utilizing Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies such as AI systems and IoT (Internet of Things) to solve various urban problems and improve residents’ quality of life.

Since the launch of the 7th local government, the district has pledged to establish a smart city and formed a dedicated team in January last year. It has carried out various projects to make residents’ lives smarter, including installing smart crosswalk pedestrian safety systems and IoT urban data composite sensors.

This year, to strengthen expertise in promoting smart city projects, the team was expanded and newly established as a dedicated department called the Smart Information Division, and an ordinance was enacted to provide institutional grounds for its operation.

Additionally, to provide demand-centered smart city services that residents can feel, the ‘Gwanak-type Living Lab’ composed of residents, technology experts, and local governments is operating to independently solve local issues such as transportation, safety, and welfare.

In March, reflecting the characteristics of areas with many single-woman households, 10 units of ‘Smart Safety Lighting’ combining video and audio analysis devices with CCTV were pilot-installed in the one-room apartment dense area of Sillim-dong. The ‘Smart Safety Lighting’ system notifies the integrated control center when dangerous situations such as screams or assaults are detected, preventing accidents in advance.

For the first time nationwide, wristwatch-type wandering detection devices equipped with GPS location trackers are provided to women with developmental disabilities, allowing guardians to check the location of those under protection in real time via a smartphone app, thereby striving to create a safe living environment for women with disabilities.

Using IoT, the ‘Smart Disabled Parking Zone Keeper Service’ promotes parking convenience for disabled drivers, and the ‘Traditional Market Wireless Fire Alarm Facility’ detects heat and smoke in traditional markets to prevent large-scale fires, implementing lifestyle-oriented projects that residents can directly experience.

Along with this, the district plans to promote in the second half of the year the ‘Integrated Disabled Children’s Smart Keeper Service’ that uses location tracking technology to monitor children’s activities and health status, and ‘Digital Information Gap Reduction Robot Education’ for seniors who are easily excluded from the digital society.

Meanwhile, in July, Gwanak-gu was selected for five public contests, including those hosted by central government ministries such as the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, securing a total of 1.1 billion KRW in external funding including national and city funds.

Among these, the ‘Smart City Integrated Platform Infrastructure Project’ secured an additional 600 million KRW in district funds, totaling 1.2 billion KRW, to build a low-cost, high-efficiency integrated platform linking the CCTV integrated control center with the public safety sector.

Once completed, this project will directly connect video information from 4,636 CCTV units installed throughout the region with emergency services 112 and 119, enabling golden time responses for ▲emergency dispatch ▲support for socially vulnerable groups ▲disaster situation response.

Gwanak-gu Smart Integrated Control Center

Mayor Park Junhee stated, “We will also conduct our own public contest projects to discover smart technology ideas that solve various urban problems or improve residents’ quality of life,” and promised, “Going forward, we will transform residents’ lives to be more convenient and smarter through innovative smart city policies centered on people.”

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