WeGO Matchmaking Program Results SRPOST & Baguio City
Seoul, July 07th – WeGO has since its establishment been providing support (financial, technical, networking, and information) to member cities to facilitate their transformation into smart sustainable cities. We aimed to assess its member cities’ current smart city development status, draw practical strategies and implement pilot projects that align with the local and/or national development goals and plans, in cooperation with the selected consultants. In line with the initiative, WeGO facilitated PPP (Public-Private-Partnership) with its members. We are happy to announce that this year Baguio City (Philippines) and SRPOST (WeGO corporate member) will be developing a smart CCTV platform that can detect guns and weapons in real time and by this prevent the city from violence.
Angelina Khodotova, International Project Manager
How did you meet a WeGO city member (Baguio City) for this matchmaking program?
“For the successful preparation of the EUREKA (European Research Coordination Agency), we were in search of future pilot grounds. Specifically, we were looking for a city that would be interested in providing us with the territory and assisting us in the pilot project. We also were looking into the cases where the proposed platform could benefit the current city’s developments in the smart city area. At the same time, we had a rather tight schedule for partner search, and we asked WeGO for help: the WeGO officer kindly inquire about the specifics of the problem, discussed with us our regions of interest, and swiftly shared information with the relevant municipalities. Upon WeGO’s assistance in various calls and meetings arrangement, we e-met Baguio City and signed with them the documentation proving their participation in the project. We couldn’t be more excited about our project with Baguio given this history and WeGO’s involvement.”
How would you describe WeGO’s role in this project?
“WeGO has initially provided us with the matchmaking opportunities upon our request and helped us to find a pilot project partner – a necessary condition to initially apply for the program. Thus, WeGO helped us in facilitating the application process. Upon the change of the Baguio city’s focal points, WeGO also continuously helped us to reconnect with the city and discuss its team project development.”
What are your expectations from this project?
“Apart from the development of the planned system and its implementation in Baguio within the pilot, we look forward to bringing new technologies together with our Spanish partner and creating international patents. We are also excited about our international cooperation with Baguio and the expansion of our network in the Philippines. During our recent business trip to Baguio, we learned about similar initiatives of the city, and we also plan our project to contribute to further smart city development locally and to the knowledge and experience exchange on the topic. In addition, we expect to use the technologies derived from this project to later enter the Latin American and South East Asian market considering its convenient regional AI and privacy regulation and further work on implementing AI and GIS technologies-based data convergence for city management and safety.”
What is unique about this project/technology/solution?
“Our project focuses on the development of a scalable smart city safety platform based on GIS services and a local network of CCTV feeds. It also provides visualization for rapid situation analysis and allows integration with pre-existing platforms, for example, those maintained by city safety-related organizations. This way, we aim at the creation of a holistic safety hub for exact tracking of the city within a scalable environment, meaning that municipalities of different sizes and needs will be able to apply the system. Importantly, our system will be based on the recognition algorithms of our Spanish partner, such as face recognition (where allowed by local legislation), and object and behavior recognition among others. This way the platform allows for detailed safety.”
What was challenging for making this project work?
“As the project has been started recently, we probably don’t yet have a full picture of project-specific challenges. Yet, as usual, it is a bit tricky to organize effective communication between international participants due to the time and work frames difference. In such cases, the public sector also feels a bit more vulnerable providing any inter information to overseas partners. However, due to the sincere devotion of all project participants, we are effectively communicating any project updates and development requirements with each other.”
Any last words for the WeGO Secretariat?
“SRPOST has been WeGO’s member since the start of our international activity in 2017, and since then we always have been supported by the organization either with WeGO’s ongoing projects and programs or per our separate request. SROIST only could be grateful for the continuous support and assistance of WeGO throughout our various initiatives, including the pilot project with the city of Baguio.”
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