Government to open a national idea contest for "Smart City@Metaverse"

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport will hold a 'Smart City Idea Competition for Metaverse Utilization' to discover creative services and technologies in the field of smart cities and promote the public interest.

This idea contest, which implements the Smart City Future Award, which contains urban problem-solving plans, on the metaverse platform, is open to all citizens and plans to select and award a total of 18 cases.

In order to participate in the competition, the smart city ideas need to be submitted using three metaverse platforms (Zepeto, Minecraft, and Roblox), which have many domestic users, with a work introduction video (within 5 minutes).

Details will be released through the public offering guidelines posted on the website of the Korea Agency for Infrastructure Technology Advancement and participants need to submit the introduction video of the work and related application documents via e-mail by August 15.

The submitted ideas will be reviewed by an external judging committee composed of smart city, metaverse, innovation technology experts, and metaverse creators. The winner will be awarded 10 million won with the Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.

The results of the screening will be notified individually to the winners at the end of August, but the awards ceremony and award-winning demonstration will be held on September 1 as an additional event of the World Smart City Expo, where technologies of smart city companies around the world are displayed.

“Smart City will be a place of innovation where various future technologies are implemented, and we expect to see the future city that our people imagine through this competition,” said Kim Bok-hwan, a city policy officer at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. “We plan to refer to the ideas proposed in the competition in the process of establishing smart city policies.”

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport will also announce plans for the start-up idea challenge with a window company and the Next Innovation Technology Demonstration Project in July to find and support prospective founders and sprout companies with innovative technologies and services related to smart cities following the idea contest.

Reported by Smart City Today