[Press Release] WeGO and its President City, Seoul Joins the Mayors’ High-level Dialogue at the World Summit on the Information Society Forum 2023

GENEVA – Held from March 13th to 17th, the World Summit on the Information Society Forum (WSIS) kick-started its first day with the Mayors’ Roundtable and High-level Dialogue, convening leaders from all over the world both in-person and virtually, including Se-hoon Oh, Mayor of Seoul (Republic of Korea), Marianne Alto, Mayor of Victoria (Canada), Raphaelle Veronica Ortega-David, Governor of La Union (Philippines), Nadhmi Al-Nasr, CEO of NEOM (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia), and H.E. Mr. Febrian Ruddyard, Ambassador/Permanent Representative of the Republic of Indonesia to the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, and other International Organizations in Geneva.

Opened by ITU, Geneva Cities Hub and WeGO, the Mayors’ Roundtable and High-level Dialogue provided an opportunity for leaders to present scalable best practices and challenges of digital solutions for building resilient and inclusive cities with a focus on climate change adaptation and energy transition. During this session, the Secretary General of WeGO, Jung Sook Park, underlined the important role of WeGO in engaging the community and combining efforts to promote the sustainability of our cities using environmental, social and governance (ESG) frameworks. She emphasized that “concerted efforts on addressing the environment and energy problem as well as the cyber environment ecosystem are some of the important protocols to make strides in reinforcing the ESG framework.”

Following the Secretary General of WeGO, the Mayor of Seoul, Se-hoon Oh, made his online speech in presenting Seoul’s vision to becoming a people-centered inclusive smart city, making full use of “smart infrastructure” throughout the city, “smart services” based on cutting-edge technologies, and “smart citizens” who are willing to adopt digital lifestyles. The Mayor of Seoul highlighted the available services that benefit vulnerable groups, including the operation of autonomous vehicles for the disabled, online educational platforms for children from low-income families, provision of digital assistance to the elderly and the opening of the first-ever public metaverse.

Furthermore, during the Mayors’ Roundtable, WeGO and Seoul introduced the ‘Seoul Smart City Prize’, an initiative designed to promote smart city models that narrow the gap between cities in their smart city development and ensure an inclusive digitalization of public services that benefit and include all people through the Prize. The Secretary General of WeGO encouraged cities, companies, organizations and individuals present at the WSIS Forum to showcase their cases through the Prize.

Several key messages were delivered during the city case presentations of the Mayors’ Roundtable, especially by the CEO of NEOM (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia), Nadhmi Al-Nasr, who stressed the essence of a people-centered approach to ensure that “95% of land will be preserved for nature.”
The Secretary General Park and the CEO Nadhmi Al-Naser shared their vision on the importance of building a people-centered smart city and taking the opportunity forward, agreed to explore further collaborations by exchanging visits to Seoul and Neom city in coming months.

Additionally, one of WeGO members actively leading the smart city initiatives in the region, the Governor of La Union (Philippines), Raphaelle Veronica Ortega-David placed focus on digital innovation especially in the post COVID-19 era, sharing the need to automate e-government systems and administrative tasks.

During the occasion, WeGO and Geneva Cities Hub commenced a MOU signing ceremony sharing the vision for united partnership in fostering resilient and inclusive cities around the world. Geneva Cities Hub is a platform for the global city networks and numerous international institutions established by the city of Geneva and the Canton of Geneva through the support of the Swiss Confederation.

About WeGO

The World Smart Sustainable Cities Organization (WeGO), is a membership-based international association of local governments, smart tech solution providers, and institutions committed to the transformation of cities into smart sustainable cities through facilitating public-private partnerships (PPP). WeGO was founded by 50 member cities in 2010 as the World e-Governments Organization, hence our acronym. In response to the evolving concept of smart cities, WeGO expanded its vision and mandate at the 7th General Assembly (2017) and its name to the World Smart Sustainable Cities Organization. WeGO’s Secretariat is based in Seoul, Korea, and has regional offices in East Asia (Chengdu, China), the Mediterranean (Beyoglu, Turkey), Africa (Abuja, Nigeria), Middle East & North Africa (Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates), Latin America (Cuenca, Ecuador), and Central Asia (Almaty, Kazakhstan). As the leading platform on smart city development, WeGO’s mission is to share knowledge and good practices in e-Governance; strengthen administrative efficiency and transparency; advance digital capacity; facilitate civic involvement; bridge the digital divide and inequality; and promote cooperation solidarity among cities and local governments around the world.

WeGO serves for its members as their international platform to improve the quality of life, innovate in the delivery of public services, and strengthen regional competitiveness.

Press Contact:
Name:  Jin Hwang
E-mail: jin.hwang@we-gov.org
Phone: 02-720-2931