Yeongju City Finds Answers for 'Young Administration Experiment' at AI Field Sites

Y-Junior Board Workshop Held

Discovering Ideas for Smart Administration and Organizational Innovation

Yeongju City in North Gyeongsang Province is accelerating administrative innovation for the future by harnessing the creativity and digital sensibilities of its young public officials.

The city is going beyond simple job training by launching an experiment where participants can directly experience future administrative models based on AI, public data, and digital content, while exploring the potential for policy transformation.

The city announced that the "2026 Y-Junior Board Workshop" was held in various areas of Seoul for two days and one night from May 19 to May 20, 2026.

Officials participating in the Yeongju Y-Junior Board visited the Seoul AI Smart City Center.
[Photo by Yeongju City]

This workshop was organized to actively incorporate the fresh perspectives and policy ideas of junior public officials into municipal administration, and to strengthen the city’s capacity for innovation to respond to the rapidly changing digital administrative environment.

The Y-Junior Board is an innovation group within Yeongju City, made up of public officials in their 20s and 30s who have served for less than seven years.

This year, a total of 20 members have been divided into five teams, carrying out projects aimed at discovering new policies and improving organizational culture.

It is regarded not simply as an internal club, but as a policy laboratory and organizational innovation platform for young public officials.

Workshop participants visited the Seoul AI Smart City Center and the immersive media art exhibition space, Theater of Light, where they experienced firsthand cases of AI-based smart administration and the use of digital content.

At the Seoul AI Smart City Center in particular, they reviewed citizen-oriented services utilizing public data and examples of AI-driven urban management, continuing discussions on future administrative directions that can enhance both administrative efficiency and citizen convenience.

At the Theater of Light, they focused on analyzing the potential for digital transformation of local tourism resources and public facilities by examining how aging spaces have been reborn as cutting-edge media art venues.

Participants shared the opinion that combining advanced technology with local cultural and tourism content could have a positive impact on promoting longer stays for tourists and strengthening the city's brand competitiveness.

During the workshop, a brainstorming seminar on organizational culture innovation was held, where participants engaged in open discussions on fostering a horizontal organizational culture, expanding intergenerational communication, promoting interdepartmental collaboration, and devising effective policy ideas.

The participating public officials said, "By experiencing AI-based administrative innovation firsthand, we were able to consider the direction of changes in public services more realistically," adding, "We hope to see further expansion of environments where the ideas of young public officials can be translated into actual policies."

Lee Hangyu, Director of Planning and Budget at Yeongju City, stated, "The future competitiveness of administration ultimately begins with the creativity and flexible thinking of young public officials," adding, "We will continue to drive organizational culture innovation and strengthen digital administrative capabilities, centered around the Y-Junior Board, to bring about changes that citizens can truly feel."

Local administrators are evaluating this workshop as an example that demonstrates the direction of digital transformation and generational innovation in local administration, going beyond passive observational training sessions.

There is also analysis that, especially in the context of declining populations and weakening local competitiveness—common challenges for regional cities—policy experiments led by young public officials could become a new driving force for future local government innovation.

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