WeGO Smart City Champions Lead the Youth Session at the 2022 Seoul Smart City Leaders Forum
September 30, 2022
SEOUL – On September 27, WeGO co-organized the 2022 Seoul Smart City Leaders Forum, alongside the Seoul Metropolitan Government at the Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP). As cities continue to rapidly enter into the digital era, this shines light on the growing digital divide and the need to ensure that no one is left behind. Against this background, the theme of Seoul Smart City leader Forum 2022 was “Beyond Digital Divide, Meta Seoul” to drive knowledge sharing among global international cities and IT companies for inclusive growth.
Moderated by the Secretary General of WeGO, Jung Sook Park, the Forum kicked off with an engaging and enlightening discussion with the presence of the Vice Mayor for Administrative Affairs of Seoul Metropolitan Government, Eui Seung Kim, followed by esteemed leaders as H.E Einar H.Jensen, Ambassador of the Embassy of Denmark in Korea, Yong-Byoung Cho, CEO of Shinhan Financial Group, Pilar Conesa, CEO of Anteverti, and Maeng-seog Yang, Head of Metaverse CO at SK Telecom.
Seoul City Introduces WeGO’s Seoul Global Smart City Prize
During the Forum, WeGO and the Seoul Metropolitan Government introduced ‘Seoul Global Smart City Prize’, which is designed to champion people-centered smart city initiatives that bring the world together to accelerate inclusive, smart, and sustainable development.
The Seoul Global Smart City Prize, which will be launched in 2023, will identify and raise awareness of the excellence of each city. It will highlight their efforts to promote inclusive growth, as they build smart cities with the inclusion of vulnerable groups. Among these smart cities, winners will be selected to share their vision and ideas with the world at the Seoul Global Smart City Prize Ceremony held in Seoul, Korea.
WeGO Smart City Champions at the Forefront of the Youth Session
In the afternoon, the Leaders Forum was organized into three fruitful sessions that focused on city transformation, metaverse technologies, and youth-driven smart solutions to address the digital gap in cities. The city session was joined by distinguished speakers from all over the world, including Andrew Cockburn, Head of Global Business at Connected Places Catapult, Fred Jung, Mayor of Fullerton, California, and Colin Low, CEO of the Singapore Land Authority, who shared their vision on shaping cities for a brighter tomorrow.
Subsequently, the corporate session invited heads of leading IT companies in Korea, such as Unity Technologies, Neptune Company and LOTTE Data Communication Company, to share on intriguing metaverse technologies that aim to improve the lives of citizens.
The final session, the youth session, was led by WeGO and its ‘Smart City Champions’ that featured innovative youth-led digital solutions. As youth are one of the most important actors and leaders that can foster the development of innovative technologies and solutions that can complement the rapidly changing world and its diverse challenges, the session emphasized the need to give voice to the people in confronting the adversities that all cities face together.
The Smart City Champions, WeGO’s youth program that aspires to build the capacities of young people in the fields of urban development, sustainability and smart cities, selected three winning teams and one special recognition team out of 500 talented young individuals from 60 top universities and schools, to present their ideas.
WeGO’s ‘Smart City Champions’ introduced smart solutions to solving pressing challenges across cities, such as by promoting sustainable EV charging and green energy harvesting network for energy resilience and fostering experiential and interactive learning from the use of metaverse. These solutions strive to face growing issues in cities including food security, poverty, education and digital gap, and climate change.
The Forum gave an opportunity for these youth representatives to identify potential partners to further develop their solutions to benefit the wellbeing of communities all over the world and to fulfill Seoul and WeGO’s vision of promoting people-centered smart cities. It also provided a chance to receive feedback on their solutions through knowledge exchange and networking with leaders in the field of metaverse and digital technology.
In closing the Forum, WeGO delivered the Mayoral Award to the winners of the Smart City Champions program, signed by the President of WeGO and Mayor of Seoul, Mayor Oh Se-hoon, to commemorate their achievements during the program and beyond.
For the full program and list of attendees, please find the link to the website. (Link).
About WeGO
The World Smart Sustainable Cities Organization (WeGO), established by 50 founding members in 2010, is an international association of city and other local governments, smart tech solution providers, and national and regional institutions committed to the transformation of cities into smart sustainable cities WeGO’s Secretariat is based in Seoul and supported by regional offices in Africa (Abuja, Nigeria), East Asia (Chengdu, China), Eurasia (Ulyanovsk Region, Russia), the Mediterranean (Beyoğlu, Turkey), and Latin America (Mexico City, Mexico).
WeGO has more than 200 members around the world and serves as their international platform to improve the quality of life, innovate in the delivery of public services, and strengthen regional competitiveness.
Press Contact:
Name: Jenny Joung
E-mail: jihyun@we-gov.org
Phone: 070-4209-9154