Seoul Metropolitan Government appoints ‘The First Robot Official’

[Smart City Today]

"Hello? I'm Robot Official, the first robot civil servant of Seoul City. Nice to meet you”

Starting this month, the Seoul Metropolitan Government will deploy a robot official who guides civil petitioners and deliver documents on its own. It aims to process administrative tasks efficiently by introducing advanced robot logistics technology and help citizens who visit for civil complaints.

On the 23rd, the Seoul Metropolitan Government announced that it will carry out a robot logistics demonstration project in earnest, starting with the Seoul City Hall. To this end, they appointed "Robot Official No. 1" who will play a role in receiving documents (delivery) and guiding the building to the civil service site.

From the end of this month, the robot official will travel around the main office of Seoul City Hall to perform administrative tasks such as delivering high-ranking documents (parcels) and guiding civil petitioners. In addition, as the robot official will perform the duties of administrative support, it plans to designate him as a public official and award him a temporary public official card.

The Seoul Metropolitan Government decided to carry out a logistics autonomous delivery demonstration project in cooperation with Robotis Co., Ltd., which was selected through open recruitment in the first half of the year. While the Seoul Metropolitan Government provides the main building as a robot testbed space, Robotis provides robots free of charge during the demonstration period.

Robotis Co., Ltd. is Korea's leading native robot company that develops and produces robot technology on its own after receiving a special case for demonstration as the first nationwide regulatory sandbox in 2019.

"Robot technology in the public sector is less useful than the private sector due to various regulations for facility safety and building security," said Ho Baek, head of the Seoul Metropolitan Government's Urban Transportation Division. “We will overcome these restrictions and speed up the development of related technologies by verifying the availability of logistics robots through the Seoul Metropolitan Government's No. 1 robot official, which has been introduced after sufficient preparation," he said.