Seoul – A Digital City

Seoul – A Digital City

The world has plenty of cities which are famous for one thing or another. Paris is the city of love, New York, the Big Apple, San Francisco, the home of the Golden Gate bridge. With that in mind, people always remember cities for something that they do in a unique way, their culture, their people, food, architecture. Rarely is a city remember for its entire infrastructure. If you go to South Korea, you will find a very interesting city, which developed so rapidly, that it can easily be called the Digital City. It is the city with the fastest internet connection in the world. It is only normal that it should also be the technologically most advanced city. Here is what you can expect to see in Seoul, the Digital City.

Tech Giant

Like many successful cities, Seoul also has something which is driving it forward. It is firstly the capital of South Korea. Capital cities often have an edge compared to the rest of the cities in the country. But, there are plenty of technology giants in Seoul, like Samsung, LG, SK and KT. Backed by the government, they are also working on making Seoul a smart city. There were plans to make Seoul smart by 2030, but that is far too ambitious. The city is really large and it would take a lot of things to go right for that to happen. Luckily, a smart city is already there, only 30 kilometers south of Seoul.

Songdo – The Smart City Experiment

Close to Incheon lies Songdo, a city which is like your smart home, but larger. What does that mean? It was a government-backed experiment, to create a city where everything is connected, buildings, mobile phones, street lights and even traffic lights. All of these things gather data and communicate with one another. Your bus is late, you get a notification. Your bus is coming in sooner, you still get notified. On a more personal level, you can adjust almost everything in your apartment/house remotely. Taking classes online is an option, as well as video calling everyone for free. This is a much smaller city compared to Seoul, but is serves as an experiment which only provides more arguments for building or transforming a city into a smart city.

Adaptation

Younger people will have no trouble adapting to this kind of lifestyle, for they were raised with technology in their hands. Older Seoul citizens will have to change their mindset to adapt to the new city. But, with that in mind, the government plans to make the city serve the citizens and not ruin their lives.

Seoul is already a modern city. Given enough years, it should become a smart city like its much smaller neighbor, Songdo. 

Kevin