CES's Largest Ever 'Seoul Pavilion'... 18 Companies Win Innovation Awards, 2 Receive Best Innovation Awards

Mayor Oh Se-hoon Attends Local Opening Ceremony
Meets with Hyundai Motor Group Chairman Chung Eui-sun

On the 9th (local time), Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon visited the opening site of 'CES 2024,' the world's largest home appliance and information and communication technology (ICT) exhibition held in Las Vegas, USA, to showcase Seoul's smart city competitiveness and domestic companies on the global stage.

Seoul City announced that it will operate the largest-ever 'Seoul Pavilion' at CES 2024, which runs for four days starting from the 9th. Since first participating in CES in 2020 with 20 companies, the city has been operating the Seoul Pavilion to support investment attraction and sales for innovative companies based in Seoul.

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon (left), who is on a business trip to the United States to attend CES 2024, is listening to an explanation from Chung Eui-sun, Chairman of Hyundai Motor Group, at Hyundai Motor's exhibition booth in the LVCC West Hall on the morning of the 9th (local time). Photo by Seoul City

At the Seoul Pavilion, located in the 670㎡ Eureka Park, a national and startup exhibition hall, 13 organizations along with 81 Seoul-based startups in healthcare, artificial intelligence (AI), mobility, and other fields showcased their innovative technologies and products to global investors. The 13 partner organizations include Seoul Business Agency, Seoul Bio Hub, Seoul AI Hub, Gwanak-gu, Campus Town Business Growth Center, Yonsei University, Korea University, Sogang University, Hanyang University, Chung-Ang University, Kyung Hee University, Konkuk University, and Kookmin University.

Among the companies participating in the Seoul Pavilion, 18 received the CES 2024 'Innovation Award.' Two companies, Road System and TopTable, were also awarded the 'Best of Innovation Award,' given to only 1% of all CES participants.

Road System received the Best of Innovation Award in the financial technology category and the Innovation Award in the cybersecurity personal information category for its identity verification application 'TripPass.' Using TripPass, foreigners can verify their identity without a physical passport at duty-free shops, retail stores, public institutions, and more, and can also use mobile payment and transportation card services.

TopTable, which also received the Best of Innovation and Innovation Awards, offers a 4D food printing customized nutrition delivery system that allows the creation of tailored foods by adjusting texture, size, and nutritional content.

On the morning of the same day, Mayor Oh attended the Seoul Pavilion opening ceremony with Gary Shapiro, Chairman of CTA, and about 100 representatives of participating companies, touring the booths to directly experience the exhibited innovative technologies and products. The opening ceremony also featured the 'Seoul Startup Innovation Tree Lighting Ceremony,' symbolizing the growth of startups seeded by Seoul into global companies.

In his congratulatory speech at the opening ceremony, Mayor Oh emphasized, "We will continue to support research and development, testbeds, commercialization, and startup spaces to help more innovative companies grow." He also promised comprehensive support to help innovative startups expand overseas with their technologies and services.

Meanwhile, before the Seoul Pavilion opening event, Mayor Oh visited the Hyundai Motor booth at the Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC) West Hall around 9 a.m. that day. After meeting with Hyundai Motor Group Chairman Chung Eui-sun, Mayor Oh toured the booth and test-drove a single-seat futuristic mobility vehicle.

During the meeting with Chairman Chung, Mayor Oh proposed mobility innovations such as autonomous driving and urban air mobility (UAM) as solutions to logistics crises caused by a shortage of the working-age population due to low birth rates and aging. The city is cooperating with Hyundai Motor to achieve early commercialization in autonomous driving and UAM fields, including Gangnam robo-taxi and short-distance autonomous shuttle operations in Yeouido.

Based on this cooperative relationship, the city plans to strengthen its mobility partnership with Hyundai Motor to ensure early demonstration and commercialization of innovative technologies.

Mayor Oh announced the 'Seoul Autonomous Driving Vision 2030' plan in 2021, pledging to invest 148.7 billion KRW over five years until 2026 to build autonomous driving infrastructure throughout Seoul.

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