Mayor Park Won-soon to Promote 'Smart Seoul' at US CES (Comprehensive)

First Seoul Mayor to Participate
Discussion with Panelists from Around the World

Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon is participating in a panel discussion after delivering the keynote speech at the CES Special Session held on the 8th (local time). (Provided by Seoul City)

[Asia Economy Reporter Hyunju Lee] "The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones."

On the 8th (local time), at the keynote speech of the special session at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) held in Las Vegas, USA, Mayor Park Won-soon of Seoul began with the words of economist Keynes. Mayor Park emphasized, "A new way to cope with new changes is needed," adding, "In the era of change brought by evolved technology, the important issue is whether we can make citizens' lives more convenient and prosperous and also integrate it into the overall culture."

As the first Seoul mayor to participate in CES, Mayor Park delivered a roughly five-minute speech in English on the theme of 'people-centered sustainable innovation.' He stated, "From the citizens' perspective, we have built smart infrastructure not only to innovate public services that improve citizens' quality of life but also to guarantee citizens' right to know and digital basic rights," explaining the core values of 'Smart City Seoul.' He added, "Smart cities should be approached as a basic right that everyone, including socially vulnerable groups, should enjoy without exclusion."

After the speech, Mayor Park continued discussions with panelists from various countries. To Omar Khan, Chief Product Officer (CPO) of Magic Leap, Laura Skewell, co-founder of StreetLight Data, and others, Mayor Park introduced projects such as the 'Owl Bus,' which derives routes using big data on currency circulation, the world's first '5G Converged Autonomous Driving Testbed,' and the 'Our Neighborhood Store Commercial Area Analysis Service,' which utilizes 10 billion data points per month.

Following the special session, Mayor Park also demonstrated the 'Digital Citizen Mayor's Office' at the CES Seoul Pavilion. He showed how disaster accident situations and handling status, real-time air pollution levels, and traffic conditions are implemented in the Citizen Mayor's Office. For this CES, the city installed six 55-inch screens to create a digital Citizen Mayor's Office of the same size as the mayor's office at Seoul City Hall.