WeGO Expands Its Mission to the United States
Seoul, February 26, 2025 — The World Smart Sustainable Cities Organization (WeGO) has successfully concluded its second strategic mission to the United States, visiting key states on the East Coast, including New York, Washington, D.C., Virginia, and Maryland. Following the Secretariat’s mission to the West Coast last month, which included visits and engagements with cities, corporations, and institutions in California and Las Vegas, as well as WeGO’s participation at the United States Conference of Mayors (USCM), WeGO’s recent missions to the USA stem from the Secretariat’s assessment that its membership in North America, particularly the United States, has been less activated over the years.
To address this, WeGO, led by Secretary General Mr. Jeong-kee Kim, has embarked on a series of strategic missions to re-engage its members in the U.S., strengthen existing partnerships, and conduct outreach to new potential local governments, corporations, and institutions in North America. The increased engagement is expected to increase awareness and participation from the region in WeGO’s key initiatives, including the Seoul Smart Life Week and the Seoul Smart City Prize, co-hosted with its President City, Seoul.
To effectively utilize the established network and resources of the Korean diplomatic missions and the Korean American associations, WeGO representatives held meetings with the Consul Generals of Korea in New York and Washington, D.C., respectively, to discuss forging connections with cities under the Consulate General’s jurisdiction. Secretary General Kim also held strategic discussions with the Ambassador of the Republic of Korea to the United States, Ambassador Cho Hyun-dong, who underlined the importance of incorporating more U.S. cities into WeGO’s membership as an international organization and provided invaluable insights and strategies on WeGO’s US membership expansion efforts.
Most importantly, expanding WeGO’s outreach to US local governments, the delegation traveled to and established connections with city and county leadership in the states of New York, New Jersey, Virginia, and Maryland. Separate meetings were held with Mr. Edward Mermelstein, New York City’s Commissioner for International Affairs at the Mayor’s Office for International Affairs, Mr. Ben Walsh, the Mayor of Syracuse, Mr. Ryan McMahon, the County Executive of Onondaga County, New York, Mr. Steven Fulop, the Mayor of Jersey City, Mr. Mark Park, the Mayor of Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, and Ms. Jolene Ivey, the County Council Chair of the Prince George’s County, Maryland. During these meetings, WeGO introduced and welcomed the cities and counties to apply for the Seoul Smart City Prize 2025 and invited the city and county leadership to attend the Seoul Smart Life Week taking place from September 30 to October 2, 2025 in Seoul. Discussions around WeGO membership and a potential North America Regional Office also took place with these local governments, especially in relation to the specific demands and interests each government has, such as promoting business and economic development, serving as the hub for the semiconductor industry, applying AI to public administration, strengthening city diplomacy and establishing sister city relations within WeGO’s network.
Another strategic engagement WeGO has been pursuing since the January mission to the United States is exploring opportunities for partnership with associations of cities and local governments in the United States. Following the participation at the United States Conference of Mayors (USCM) last month, during the February mission, WeGO made a visit to the headquarters of the National League of Cities (NLC), which is composed of over 2,700 city, town and village leaders. WeGO’s goal of strengthening its U.S. outreach and NLC’s interest in increasing its international and global engagement were identified and created opportunities for exploring areas of potential cooperation. With the support of NLC, information about the Seoul Smart City Prize will be shared with NLC’s members and as a key partnership effort, WeGO and NLC will continue its discussion on WeGO’s participation at NLC’s upcoming annual meetings.
In addition, notably, new partnerships around the Seoul Smart City Prize were pursued with two organizations in New York City. Identifying the growing significance of the intersection between climate and smart cities, WeGO held an in-person meeting with The New York Climate Exchange (NYCE) to introduce the Seoul Smart City Prize, build on Special Mention partnership opportunities, and invite the Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Stephen Hammer, to join the Seoul Prize High Council, a proposal that was accepted during the meeting. WeGO also met with the President & CEO of The Korea Society, who accepted the invitation to join the Seoul Prize High Council. The Korea Society invited WeGO to co-organize an event on their premises and the two organizations brainstormed the idea of hosting a session where Secretary General Kim will be introducing the Seoul Prize to an audience of U.S. city and local government representatives.
Other engagements included visits to corporations and institutions to strengthen WeGO’s corporate and institutional partnerships. In NYC, WeGO explored financial and technological synergies by visiting the NASDAQ Marketsite and attending an event with SealSQ, a company specializing in semiconductors and post-quantum technology hardware and software. The event provided an opportunity to network with key industry stakeholders. WeGO also visited Syracuse University, meeting with the Vice Chancellor for Strategic Initiatives and Innovation to encourage the university to apply for the Seoul Prize. Given its data analysis work for the City of Syracuse and global smart city projects carried out by its faculty, the Vice Chancellor also offered to promote the Seoul Prize to the university’s academic community. Last but not least, WeGO also advanced collaborations around the issues of sustainability through a meeting with the President & CEO of The International Conservation Caucus Foundation (ICCF). The Foundation expressed interest in submitting an urban green project the Foundation is collaborating with Asunción, Paraguay, to the Seoul Smart City Prize and in bringing Paraguayan representatives to the Seoul Smart Life Week.
Another highlight of the February mission to the USA was engaging with American news publications and think tanks specializing in global affairs and international policy, including Foreign Policy and The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). In particular, with Foreign Policy, WeGO explored avenues for not only promoting WeGO’s key initiatives but also conducting joint research, podcasts, and events on topics such as the future of smart cities. Secretary General Kim also met with the Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Mr. Gordon M. Goldstein, elaborating on WeGO’s role as a global city-level platform connecting urban initiatives internationally.
Equally important were meetings with the Korean American community and network in New York, including the President of the Korean American Association of Greater New York, the President of the Korean Association of the Greater Washington Metropolitan Area, as well as the President of the Korean American Chamber of Commerce in Washington State who visited D.C., during the time of the WeGO delegation’s visit. With these meetings, the associations agreed to promote WeGO and the Seoul Prize through its newsletters and in-person meetings with the surrounding local governments within each association’s area.
Through the two consecutive missions in January and February, WeGO successfully concluded a series of high-level engagements and visits across the United States to further expand its membership and partnerships in the North America region. As WeGO continues to strengthen its global reach, these missions have reinforced WeGO’s commitment to foster global cooperation in advancing smart city innovation, digital transformation, and sustainable urban development worldwide.
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: Kakim Danabayev
E-mail: kakim@we-gov.org
Phone: +82-70-4202-9169