Government to open a contest for innovative technologies for smart cities led by citizens

As part of the smart challenge business, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced that it will push for a project to discover innovative technologies to develop creative solutions and provide opportunities to demonstrate local urban problems.

This year's new innovative technology discovery project aims to promote the participation of citizens, suppliers, and businesses who are consumers of smart solutions from the business planning stage and discover various innovative regional problem-solving solutions.

The smart challenge project has been promoted since 2018 to solve urban problems through the introduction of smart solutions, and about 240 smart city services are being demonstrated in 64 cities nationwide so far. However, the project has been carried out based on plans tailored to the needs of local governments, which was somewhat insufficient to freely discover innovative and creative services and technologies of companies and universities.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport expects to solve such problems through this year’s project, which promotes the participation of citizens who are consumers of smart solutions and companies and universities who are suppliers.

The smart city innovation technology discovery project will be carried out in two forms: a business-led type for companies, universities, and local governments with innovative technologies, and a citizen-led Living Lab type that solves local urban problems by citizens.

The company-led type will select 10 projects and support up to 1.5 billion won per project, and the citizen-led living lab type will select 5 projects to support up to 1 billion won per project.

The government will receive a business plan from March 3 to March 8 and plans to make the final selection at the end of March 2022.

Excellent technologies discovered through the project will get benefits such as the designation of innovative products, and appropriate consulting from specialized institutions will also be provided in the process of implementing them to enhance smart city diffusion projects and commercialize innovative technologies.

After selecting the technology, an agreement between the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport, business operators, and local governments will be signed and immediately start the project to demonstrate the solution for a year.

The public offering plan can be found on the Internet homepage of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport or on the Smart City General Portal.

Reported by Smart City Today