Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Announces '2021 Smart Challenge Project' Contest

2021 Smart Challenge Project Infographic (Provided by Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport)

[Asia Economy Reporter Chunhee Lee] The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced on the 10th that the '2021 Smart Challenge Project,' which seeks to discover and create innovative services to solve urban problems through the collaboration of citizens, companies, and local governments, will begin accepting applications from the 12th.

Starting this year, the Ministry has significantly expanded the project scale from 18 locations last year to 44 locations to promote the full-scale dissemination and expansion of smart city services. In addition to the existing 'City Challenge' and 'Town Challenge' categories, a new 'Campus Challenge' project has been introduced to discover new ideas based on university research and development achievements. A 'Solution Expansion' project has also been newly established.

The City Challenge is a project where companies and local governments form consortia to develop comprehensive solutions to solve problems across the entire city. Last year, selected projects included ▲Incheon's integrated mobility solution introduction ▲Daejeon's traditional market IoT sensor monitoring and integrated parking platform ▲Bucheon’s shared parking and personal mobility (PM) introduction.

This year, four cities will be selected to conduct preliminary projects involving master plan establishment and pilot projects, and among them, about two with outstanding results will be selected for the main project. If selected for the preliminary project, 1.5 billion KRW in national funding will be provided, and if selected for the main project, 20 billion KRW (50% national funding) per year for two years will be supported.

The Ministry requires local governments participating in the City Challenge project to establish a 'Smart City Plan' that implements various smart services such as transportation, environment, and energy throughout the urban space to promote smartification across the city.

The Town Challenge focuses on proposing and applying specialized solutions optimized for small and medium-sized cities. The application is limited to cities, counties, and districts with populations under 500,000 (autonomous districts within special/metropolitan cities with populations over 500,000 are also eligible). Four locations will be selected and each will receive about 3 billion KRW (50% national funding) for one year. In particular, through designated calls for proposals in transportation, environment, and crime prevention?areas of high local interest?the project plans to focus on discovering new services in these fields.

2021 Smart Challenge Project Infographic (Provided by Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport)

Additionally, from this year, the Campus Challenge and Solution Expansion categories have been newly introduced.

The Campus Challenge is a project where universities, companies, and local governments collaborate to experiment with and commercialize smart services in the region. A total of eight universities will be selected in two categories: 'Research Topic Linked,' which utilizes university R&D and intellectual property, and 'Community Integrated,' which experiments with services using various public information. Each selected university will receive up to 1.5 billion KRW over two years.

Separately, an idea contest will be held where university students propose solutions for smart city implementation. Seven teams will be selected, each receiving 100 million KRW. For outstanding cases, startup support such as management consulting and commercialization funding will also be provided.

This year, the 'Smart Solution Expansion Project,' which aims to evenly distribute proven smart solutions nationwide so that citizens can experience smart city services, will also be significantly expanded. The number of locations will increase from 10 last year to about 22 this year, roughly doubling. The project scale per city will also be greatly expanded from 600 million KRW to between 2 billion and 4 billion KRW (50% national funding).

The services to be disseminated this time include 'Smart Crosswalks,' which feature pedestrian safety and vehicle stop line compliance guidance functions; 'Smart Poles,' which combine CCTV, IoT sensors, and Wi-Fi on streetlights; 'Shared Parking,' which enables integrated operation of public and private parking lots; 'Demand-Responsive Buses,' which flexibly operate routes in real time according to traffic demand; and 'Autonomous Navigation Drones,' which can be used for disaster and accident detection as well as delivery in island areas.

The 2021 Smart Challenge Project call for applications will be announced collectively on the 12th. Afterward, each project will have a 1-2 month application period. The Solution Expansion project will select participants through a first-stage evaluation (document review), while the City, Town, and Campus Challenges will select through a two-stage evaluation (document review and presentation). A total of 44 locations will be selected by April. Detailed information about the call can be found on the Smart City Comprehensive Portal.

Meanwhile, for the City and Town Challenge preliminary project areas selected last year, six main project areas (three City and three Town) will be decided through competition next month, and the achievements of each project will be actively pursued.

Choi Imrak, Director of Urban Policy at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, said, "We will focus on expanding smart city solutions nationwide so that citizens can evenly experience the benefits of smart cities," adding, "Along with this, we will emphasize discovering innovative services and commercializing them to strengthen the smart city industry ecosystem."

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