Seoul wins Smart City of the Year at the World Smart City Awards
The Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) was invited to the Smart City Expo World Congress (SCEWC) held on Wed, Nov. 16 in Barcelona and became the world’s ‘Smart City of 2022’ for its ‘partnering with the digitally vulnerable’ strategy.
The World Smart City Awards, which is one of the SCEWC’s key programs, is an event for selecting and awarding excellent smart cities, as well as ideas and projects that display leadership and promote innovative ideas. This year, 337 cities from about 60 countries participated in the world’s largest international event for smart cities.
Among the six finalist cities that were selected for displaying advanced global strategies combined with planning and policies to achieve goals, Seoul was selected for the highly prestigious ‘Smart City’ award. Finalist cities include Seoul (Republic of Korea), Kyiv (Ukraine), Toronto (Canada), Sydney (Australia), Bogota (Columbia), and Curitiba (Brazil).
As the digital gap widens following the advent of Industry 4.0 and due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Seoul was recognized as the world’s top smart city by suggesting digital inclusive policies built upon Seoul’s world-class advanced smart city infrastructure to the SCEWC Awards.
The World Smart City Awards 2022 was a valuable opportunity for sharing the city’s core policy of ‘partnering with the digitally vulnerable’ with the world, and the excellence of Seoul’s digital service policies that caters to the socially vulnerable was able to be recognized.
From the ‘Project’ award with the MVoting service unveiled in 2015 to the prestigious ‘City’ award in 2016 and the main prize in 2019, Seoul secured its status as a world-leading smart city by receiving the ‘Smart City’ award this year.
The pandemic triggered the acceleration of digitization of contactless lifestyles, and the transition into a contactless society reminded citizens of the value of connection and communication. Seoul will continue to uncover technology and services that cater to the socially vulnerable and leap as a leading global Smart City by spreading the value of ‘partnering with the digitally vulnerable.’