[PRESS RELEASE] WeGO held its first workshop for youth leaders of tomorrow
WeGO held its first workshop for youth leaders of tomorrow to find solutions for sustainable smart cities as the second phase of the ‘Smart City Champions’ with 20 selected teams
Upon receiving more than 50 project proposals, the World Smart Sustainable Cities Organization (WeGO) selected 20 teams with project proposals of utmost excellence, to enter the second phase of the program (April 25 – June 12).
May 16, 2022
SEOUL – Participants of WeGO’s Smart City Champions successfully completed the first phase of the program (March 4 – April 24). Throughout the first phase, over 500+ students from South Korea and overseas displayed great potential to comprehend various smart city topics, ranging from digital ethics, emerging smart technologies, open data, and cybersecurity. They also had the opportunity to interact with other participants from different universities from all over the world through six lectures.
Now entering the second phase, over 50 teams of approximately 350 students have submitted their project plans that outline the clear steps, methods, and stakeholders to solve a pressing smart city challenge. Many teams have submitted impressive solution topics that include leveraging smart and frontier technology for better preservation of agriculture and food security, utilizing the metaverse platform for inclusive engagement of vulnerable groups, such as disabled groups, and efficient management and use of urban spaces to strengthen environmental resilience of cities.
Among these applicants, WeGO selected 20 teams with the most creative and innovative ideas to proceed to the second phase, the Smart City Capacity Building, which is a workshop series aimed to provide a platform for discussion and interaction among youth participants. Through these workshops, the selected teams will have the opportunity to incubate their ideas and construct innovative solutions to solve a crucial smart city challenge. The workshops will also strengthen team building skills of participants as they will collaboratively work together over the course of 7 weeks in preparation for a final presentation.
Among these, a large number of Seoul National University (SNU) students, in particular from the Global R&DB Center (GRC) and the Graduate School of Public Administration (GSPA) of SNU, partners of the program from the start, enrolled in the WeGO Smart City Champions.
Taking this opportunity forward, WeGO is stepping up its collaboration with these two schools in new fields to initiate new cooperation models not only between international organizations and academia, but also between members (from the public and private sectors) of WeGO’s network and academia.
Leveraging experiences from leaders to polish solutions through interactive workshops
The second phase consists of three workshops to be held every Friday, each with a specific theme and objective that will help students in building their solutions.
The first workshop “Expert-led Mentorship and Guidance” was held on May 13th, 2022. As the first workshop of Phase II of the WeGO Smart City Champions, this workshop aimed to facilitate active interaction among selected youth participants and provide the opportunity for WeGO Champions to present their project proposals through a two-minute pitch. Youth participants also received useful feedback from smart city experts from the public and private sector as well as the academia to further develop their innovative ideas. This workshop was instrumental in addressing the challenges and questions that youth participants had with respect to Phase II of the WeGO Smart City Champions.
Jason Kwok Kwan Chan
S:Mile
Seoul National University
“The transition is already on the way, EV readiness should not be about why or when.” He continued “through implementing smart sustainable technology, we can fundamentally change strategic approach to EV charging infrastructure. One day, everyone will benefit from the current industrial revolution.” Jason points out that their project is problem oriented, one problem is regional imbalance, two is lack of opportune for smart technology, three the risks of electric overload. The team wants to build country’s most comprehensive, and inclusive EV charging network. As Team Smile likes to joke, they call themselves, “the Airbnb of sustainable EV Charing.”
Yann Shaw
Citipedia
Technical University of Munich
“Life is a circle”, says Shaw, she believes the team’s project can provide people a place for psychological healing through virtual means including metaverse, blockchain and others. “It will change the traditional funeral industry,” Shaw claims, “we are creating a more futuristic and peaceful way for people to acknowledge death” She concluded saying that it not a mere concept, the team is working to make the project come true.
Ingyu Kim
Chamjarajo
Kookmin University
“Our group’s concern was the population problems, along with the regional disparity” reiterates Ingyu Kim, the team lead of Chamjarajo. He points out there has been transportation gap, safety instability, and health infrastructure gap that causes inconvenience.” Thus, Kim says, “We are going to focus on people outside the city, the goal is to propose a comprehensive smart town system by collecting domestic and oversee best practices of how to fill in infrastructure gap using ICBM technology.”
The second workshop will follow on May 20th, called the “Inventive Thinking for a Youth-led Future”. This workshop will inspire WeGO Champions to spark innovative ideas and spearhead the process of translating their vision into reality. WeGO will invite successful C-suite youth entrepreneurs and pioneering leaders in the field of smart urbanization to share their first-hand experiences with
Champions. This opportunity will allow our youth participants to envisage a practical trajectory for the implementation and application of their projects, and will provide a platform for them to clear the fog, ask questions, and gain new perspectives.
Last but not least, the third workshop will focus on “Design Thinking Process and Methodology”, held on May 27th. Design Thinking Process and Methodology is an essential tool that can help the youth participants be equipped for any challenges that may come in their way. This workshop will serve to build youth participants’ capabilities to collaborate by introducing living lab methodology and providing hands-on experience of a design thinking activity. Champions will gain perspectives to think of a wider range of stakeholders beyond horizontal and vertical ways so that they can draw an initial estimate of what it takes to reach their goals, and how they can work together.
Selecting the final ‘Champions’: 3 winning teams
After engaging in these workshops, the 20 teams will have the chance to present their polished solutions during the Semi-finals (June 3). During this period, judges from renowned organizations will carefully evaluate to select the 10 finalist teams who will proceed to the Finals (June 10).
Participants of the 10 finalist teams have the responsibility to incorporate comments from the judges to further develop their presentations for the Finals. Ultimately, 3 winning teams will be chosen to receive an award signed by the President of WeGO and Mayor of Seoul Metropolitan Government Se-hoon Oh.
The steps that winning teams will undertake after the end of the program are even more exciting.
The winners will further interact with experts within and beyond WeGO’s network in truly applying their ideas into practice to achieve more concrete results, which may even provide career opportunities.
A youth session will also be secured for the winning teams at the Seoul Leader’s Forum, organized by the Seoul Metropolitan Government, which will be held in late September of this year. The Champions winners will have the opportunity to present their solutions to the smart city stakeholders gathered from all parts of the world during this time.
With the growing number of academic institutions and young individuals interested in the program, WeGO strives to expand the Champions to more schools, both domestic and abroad for the next year.
About WeGO Smart City Champions
The WeGO Smart City Champions is a 15-week youth program that aims to recruit youth in member cities from all around the world to gain knowledge and build consensus around the future of smart cities. By fostering knowledge exchange and building capacities of youth in the field of urban development, sustainability and smart cities through two phases, this flagship program will empower young urban leaders of tomorrow. WeGO has partnered with several esteemed domestic and international niversities to develop these two phases including, Phase I: Smart City Conceptual Foundation (lectures), and Phase II: Smart City Capacity Building (workshops), which will guide and provide insight to the participants in exploring innovative solutions to current smart city challenges.
To learn more about the WeGO Smart City Champions, visit our webpage here.
——
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
Eunji Park
eunji@we-gov.org
02-720-2935