Everything Smart City in Your Palm
- Construction of smart city online platform containing all information about smart cities
- Customized information on domestic and foreign smart city examples, latest news, information in English, etc.
All information related to smart cities can now be quickly and conveniently checked. MOLIT (Minister Hyunmee KIM) and the Architecture & Urban Research Institute (President Sohyun PARK), etc. announced that it constructed the ‘Smart City Portal(smartcity.go.kr)’ including all contents related to Korean smart cities and that portal services will be officially available starting on the 8th.
The Smart City Portal is a platform that offers smart city information accrued for over more than 10 years starting with the ubiquitous city (U-City) policies in the early 2000s. It is also a hub that links all of the homepages related to smart cities and portal users can access internet homepages related to smart cities such as relevant agencies, national pilot cities, innovative growth R&D, solution markets, World Smart City Expo, etc. with a single click. Furthermore, the portal was built so that various users including regular citizens, businesses, experts and public employees can utilize the information in customized fashions, and it will also offer English services to upgrade accessibility for foreigners on Korean smart cities.
The Smart City Portal is comprised of seven categories such as Introduction, Policies, Projects, R&D, Governance, Global Smart Cities, News, etc. and the main functions are as follows.
[1. Summary and Organization of the Past, Present and Future of Smart Cities in Korea]
First, domestic policies and projects pursued from the past to the present such as laws, systems, court plans*, research outcomes, etc. can be viewed and downloaded, and press releases from government agencies and local governments can also be easily searched by field. Especially in the case of major smart city projects such as national pilot cities, smart city challenges, and integrated platforms, map-based information is provided, in addition to the details of projects and achievements made so far, so that users can easily check the status of smart cities constructed around the nation. Furthermore, MOLIT partnered up with the Architecture & Urban Research Institute (AURIC) to offer academic information to make it possible to easily access new issues related to smart cities.
[ 2. Construction of Smart City Governance Database among Governments, Businesses, Citizens and Experts]
Importation information on major entities that make up the smart city governance such as governments, businesses and experts will also be available. Smart technologies and services per field can be searched for not only government committees such as the Special Sub-committee on Smart Cities under the Presidential Committee on the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the National Smart City Committee under the Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and the local government association comprised of 119 municipal and local governments (17 municipal, 102 local), but also for member companies of the Smart Convergence Alliance, which is a private business coalition. It also provides the roles and contact information of smart city service support institutes (10 institutes) that plan and execute government smart city policies, and it is therefore expected that assistance from expert agencies will also be available in various fields such as systems, research and exports.
[ 3. Strengthening Channel Functions to Improve Cooperation with Foreign Countries]
In addition to domestic information, it also offers information on foreign smart cities as well. Through smart city international cooperation policies such as the ‘smart city overseas entry promotion plans’ announced by the External Economy Ministers Meeting held in July of last year, overseas smart city policy information of that of the US and Spain, which individuals had to spend a lot of effort and time to find in the past, will now be readily available through this portal. In addition, online reservation functions for smart city tour programs, which has been offered since 2017, will be available in order to share Korea’s smart city experiences and knowhow on urban management, transportation, energy, and ICT solutions for foreigners, etc. It will be possible to take tours by simply entering information such as desired tour type, schedule, etc., and it is therefore expected to allow not only systematic operation of the program, but also to significantly improve user convenience.
[4. Promptly Provide the Latest News and Trends on Smart Cities]
All of the latest trends related to smart cities such as project invitation schedules and domestic/foreign event news will be available first through this portal, and online newsletters will be produced and distributed for subscribers to the portal. MOLIT Director of the Division of Urban Economy Sungho BAE said, “This is significant in that we established a hub platform for gathering and sharing smart city information that was dispersed by policy and institute by constructing this site.” He added, “We will do our best to make this the top website related to Korea’s smart cities by continuously accumulating information and advancing its functions in the future.”