Visiting the World's Largest Smart City Expo in Barcelona, Spain
Accompanying Business Leaders to Understand Latest Industry Trends and Explore Innovation Directions
Na Dong-yeon, Mayor of Yangsan City, attended the world's largest smart city expo, the ‘2024 Smart City Expo World Congress,’ held in Barcelona, Spain, along with local businesspeople.
This visit was arranged to explore the development direction of Yangsan City's smart city initiatives and to understand advanced technology trends, aiming to strengthen the competitiveness of local companies.
The ‘Smart City Expo World Congress’ is the world's largest exhibition and forum sharing the latest technologies and industry trends related to smart cities. This year, it is being held in Barcelona from November 5 to 7.
Since its inception in 2011, the event has steadily grown, attracting city officials, businesspeople, and experts from over 140 countries worldwide every year. By last year, the cumulative number of visitors exceeded 300,000, establishing the expo as a global networking platform that goes beyond simple technology exhibitions to present visions and share insights for future cities.
Especially this year, under the theme ‘LIVE BETTER,’ the expo is held on a scale more than 20% larger than the previous year, focusing on the latest technologies and concrete solutions for future cities in various fields such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, sustainable energy and smart housing, and autonomous transportation systems.
Korea operates an ‘Integrated Korea Pavilion’ at the Barcelona Smart City Expo every year, showcasing the achievements of smart city initiatives from various regions on the global stage. The Integrated Korea Pavilion is a platform presenting Korea's smart city technology and accomplishments, jointly organized by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and local governments.
In recent years, major metropolitan governments such as Seoul, Busan, and Incheon have participated in the Korea Pavilion, offering exhibitions of their smart city technologies and providing opportunities for business consultations to collaborate with overseas smart city stakeholders.
Through this visit, Yangsan City sought to strengthen its own smart city vision and strategy by referencing the successful operation experience of the Korea Pavilion and exploring possibilities for international cooperation. In particular, the city examined various practical smart city models applicable to urban safety, eco-friendly energy, smart transportation, and data-driven urban management systems, considering ways to integrate these into the city.
The city aims for efficient urban operation, eco-friendly energy use, a safe urban environment, and increased resident convenience as the development directions of its smart city initiatives. To achieve this, it plans to grow into a city where citizens can experience the benefits of a smart city in daily life by combining citizen-centered services with the latest technologies.
To this end, since April 2023, the city has been establishing a mid- to long-term basic plan for smart city creation and plans to proceed with the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport’s approval process aiming to obtain smart city certification by 2025.
Local businesspeople from Yangsan City also accompanied the visit to grasp new technologies and industry trends related to smart cities and to explore cooperation opportunities for expanding their business fields. Smart city technologies span various sectors utilizing AI, IoT, and big data, and through this event, companies had the chance to directly experience advanced technologies and understand the latest market trends.
Mayor Na Dong-yeon said, “I hope this expo served as an important opportunity for businesspeople to acquire the latest smart city technologies and explore collaboration possibilities with overseas companies,” adding, “The city will continue to seek differentiated innovative measures unique to Yangsan City, aiming for citizen-centered smart city development.”
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