Ministry of the Interior and Safety Launches Five Projects to Address Local Community Issues Using Public Data

Citizens Solve Local Community Issues Themselves Using Data

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] On the 14th, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety announced that it will actively promote five public data-based local community issue resolution projects aimed at solving various everyday problems by utilizing public data together with local residents.

The five selected projects were chosen through a national public contest (Living Lab Project Task Contest) held over four weeks from July 11 to August 5. A total of 11 projects were submitted, and after evaluation, five projects were finally selected that can serve as models for jointly addressing various local community issues and promoting co-growth between local and civic societies based on citizen participation.

The selected projects will receive support including data utilization capacity-building education, expert consultation for problem-solving, funding for related service development and project operation, and activity certificates. Outstanding projects will be awarded the Minister of the Interior and Safety Award based on performance evaluations.

This contest project is conducted through a "Living Lab" approach, reflecting the increasing importance of public-private cooperation in the digital sector to realize the Digital Platform Government. The "Living Lab" refers to activities where everyday environments serve as laboratories, allowing citizens to propose ideas to solve local community problems directly, and collaborate with experts and researchers in related fields to "realize" these ideas.

To ensure the successful completion of the projects, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety will hold an expert discussion event on the 15th at Open Square-D (Seoul Startup Hub) in collaboration with the Open Data Forum. This discussion will proceed in the order of ▲presentation of project-specific implementation plans ▲presentation of successful Living Lab cases ▲cases and suggestions for public data-based utilization ▲expert consultation for each project.

Park Deok-su, Public Data Policy Officer at the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, stated, “As citizen participation and interest in solving local issues increase, it is necessary to establish a public data provision and utilization system that citizens can directly participate in.” He added, “Various effects such as revitalizing citizen participation and innovating local communities are expected through these projects.”

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