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| Ugo Valenti, director of the Smart City Expo World Congress, speaks during a press conference at the Plaza Seoul hotel, Wednesday. Korea Times photo by Baek Byung-yeul |
By Baek Byung-yeul
Korea's advanced smart city technologies will be showcased at the upcoming Smart City Expo World Congress, an exhibition specialized in presenting the latest technologies and trends of smart cities, an urban system that uses information and communication technology (ICT) to improve operational efficiency, a director of the organizer said Wednesday.
"We are honored and excited to be in Korea to bolster our ties with Korean institutions and companies. The Republic of Korea is undoubtedly a benchmark in smart city technology and has always spearheaded the effort to make metropolises an example of how technology can improve our lives," Ugo Valenti, director of Smart City Expo World Congress, said during a press conference in Seoul.
"Examples such as Seoul, Busan, Songdo and now Sejong are paramount examples of this, and we see great potential for collaboration in this field," the director added.
Taking place in Barcelona, Spain, the Smart City Expo World Congress has been an annual event that exhibits smart city technologies from companies and cities across the world since 2011. This year's event will be held from Nov. 7 to 9.
The official organizers visited Korea to promote the event. They will share their vision with Korean companies and institutions, which possess proven advanced smart city technologies and explore new collaboration opportunities.
"We are making efforts to promote the Smart City Expo World Congress to the governmental agencies and local governments here and strengthen cooperation between Korea and Catalonia," Lee Hee-yeon, director of Catalonia T&I Republic of Korea, said.
Over 200,000 participants took part in last year's event, while Korean agencies, such as the Seoul Digital Foundation, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and the Korea Water Resources, also joined the exhibition.
The organizers said the 2023 event has already been almost fully booked despite the exhibition being held in November.
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