Creating the 'Next Smart City' with Private-Led Innovative Technology

Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Announces Smart City Next Innovation Technology Demonstration Project
Online Briefing Session to be Held on August 5

[Asia Economy Reporter Kangwook Cho] The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced on the 26th that it will begin a public contest for the ‘Smart City Next Innovation Technology Demonstration Project’ to proactively discover innovative technologies that form the foundation of future smart city services and support their early commercialization.

The Ministry has been promoting projects such as the ‘Smart Challenge Project,’ which involves local governments and universities to discover and spread smart city technologies. However, there have been criticisms that demonstration opportunities for individual technologies have been relatively insufficient, as demonstrations have mainly focused on comprehensive solutions at the city level. Additionally, while smart city service demand entities such as local governments and public institutions have a high willingness to adopt innovative technologies developed by the private sector, they have faced difficulties in actively adopting them due to the lack of demonstration cases verifying the quality of these innovative technologies.

Accordingly, the newly announced ‘Smart City Next Innovation Technology Demonstration Project’ provides opportunities for the private sector to secure demonstration cases for smart city innovative technologies, supporting a total budget of approximately 800 million KRW (around 200 million KRW per technology) for four technologies.

Companies can apply individually or jointly with demand entities (such as local governments that can provide demonstration sites). For those applying individually, support will be provided to connect demand entities and applicant companies to secure demonstration sites.

Only technologies that have not received support through smart city projects are eligible to apply, and selection will focus on evaluating the technology’s challenge level, innovativeness, and feasibility.

Additionally, extra points will be awarded to companies within the Ministry’s support system, such as graduates of the smart city startup support project and members of the Smart City Convergence Alliance, expecting synergistic effects.

Companies wishing to participate in the contest can find information on the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and Smart City Convergence Alliance websites. An online briefing session will also be held on the 5th of next month to provide detailed information.

Choi Im-rak, Director of Urban Policy at the Ministry, stated, "Since the development of smart cities begins with the private sector’s challenging and innovative technology development, we hope that companies with excellent technology and innovativeness will actively participate." He added, "The excellent technologies discovered through this contest will be actively utilized in future smart city projects, including linkage with the innovative procurement system."