Gangnam-gu to Hold Press Briefing on "Robot-Friendly City Gangnam" on the Afternoon of the 18th Introducing Suseo Station Area Robot Hub District Development and Gangnam Robot Plus Test Field Status
A representative from the Korea Electronics Technology Institute explaining the robot project within the Gangnam Robot Testbed research facility.
Gangnam-gu, Seoul (District Mayor Jo Seong-myeong) is transforming into a cutting-edge robot-specialized city.
Since the 8th term of the elected government, Gangnam-gu has reorganized its structure for the creation of a smart city. In January of this year, the New Design Bureau was reorganized into the Future Culture Bureau, and the existing five departments were restructured to prepare for smart city development, with the establishment of the Digital City Division.
As a result, the focus is on discovering policies that can enhance residents' convenience by utilizing 4th industrial technologies such as robots and artificial intelligence. Notably, Gangnam-gu became the first local government in the country to enact an ordinance for fostering the robot industry, positioning the rapidly developing robot industry as a future innovation growth engine for Gangnam.
The global robot industry market size is expected to grow from approximately $25 billion in 2020 to $160 billion by 2030, with an average annual growth rate of 20%. (Source: Boston Consulting Group BCG)
To establish a foundation for fostering the robot industry, the district enacted the Seoul Gangnam-gu Robot Industry Promotion and Support Ordinance in July last year. The main points include ▲ defining the district mayor's responsibility for the continuous growth, development, and competitiveness enhancement of the robot industry ▲ implementing comprehensive plans for robot industry promotion, conducting surveys, research and development, demonstration projects, and specialized workforce training related to robot industry promotion projects.
In particular, to create a ‘testbed sanctuary,’ Gangnam-gu is implementing digital open innovation for the first time among autonomous districts. Gangnam-gu, known as Korea's Silicon Valley where many ventures and startups gather, and a favored testbed for companies in the robot and mobility sectors, has partnered with the Korea International Trade Association to proactively discover companies needing demonstrations through the ‘Gangnam, Embracing Digital’ initiative. The first ‘Gangnam, Embracing Digital’ event was held in April last year.
This month, the second ‘Gangnam, Embracing Digital’ event was held, with 141 companies applying through a public contest, and 10 companies participating in the presentation event.
The district is conducting a public contest for robot companies tailored to administrative demand for the robot testbed project, supporting demonstration of products with Technology Readiness Levels (TRL) 6 to 9 in Gangnam-gu in the second half of the year, with support up to 40 million KRW.
Gangnam-gu is creating a Robot Street on Teheran-ro. As part of the ‘AI·5G-based Large-scale Robot Convergence Model Demonstration’ public contest project led by the Korea Institute for Robot Industry Advancement, Woowa Brothers Corp. (Baedal Minjok) is leading a delivery robot demonstration project in consortium with Gangnam-gu, Seoul Metropolitan Government, LG Electronics, WTC Seoul, and LX Korea Land and Geospatial Informatix Corporation.
Alongside this, Gangnam-gu held a festival to promote its advanced robot business development policies both domestically and internationally, including the opening of the Gangnam Robot Plus Test Field at 730 Suseo-dong, and to help residents better understand robots deeply integrated into daily life through robot exhibitions and experience events.
The district also achieved the remarkable feat of being selected as the only top city in South Korea at the ‘2023 World Smart City Awards.’
On the 18th, starting at 4 p.m., a press conference was held at the Gangnam Robot Plus Test Field located at 730 Suseo-dong to explain past achievements and future plans.
This site features various environments where robots can perform test runs (inclined roads, unpaved surfaces, grass fields, etc.), and has a road environment similar to actual roads with traffic lights and crosswalks.
With two research buildings and an outdoor robot driving space, this location is equipped with a Collaboration Function-based Demonstration Support Center and a Meister Robotization Demonstration Support Center, facilitating active testbed and research activities.
Joseongmyeong, the mayor of Gangnam-gu, is explaining the Gangnam-gu robot-specialized district plan at a press briefing.
Jo Seong-myeong, Mayor of Gangnam-gu, stated, "Gangnam-gu's excellent transportation infrastructure and well-maintained roads in a metropolitan city are suitable for robot driving and big data construction. Especially, it is a preferred workplace for young talents developing robots. By linking with SRT and other regions promoting robot industry development such as Daejeon with the Daedeok Research Complex and Changwon with national industrial complexes, we can create synergy effects in the robot industry."
Gangnam-gu is known to focus on supporting not only companies utilizing robots with technologies accumulated at the robot testbed but also the development of robots in public sectors such as security.
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