Seoul Smart City Prize Ceremony celebrates lifestyle improvement through tech innovation

City officials, company leaders and experts gathered in southern Seoul to honor those who have successfully used technological innovations to build smarter, more inclusive cities.

The Seoul Smart City Prize Ceremony took place on Thursday as part of the inaugural Smart Life Week, an ICT expo co-hosted by the Seoul Metropolitan Government and the World Smart Sustainable Cities Organization (WeGO) from Thursday through Saturday at COEX in Gangnam District, southern Seoul.

WeGO is a global city committee consisting of 213 member cities and companies, launched by the Seoul city government in 2010.

This year’s gold prizes in the two main categories — human-centric and tech-innovative — were awarded to Baguio City in the Philippines and Reykjavik in Iceland, respectively.

Baguio City received the award for its BIAG project, a health governance system designed to be inclusive and accessible, while Reykjavik won for its "A better city for children" initiative, which helped improve school systems through digital transformation.

“The prize acknowledges initiatives at various stages of development, reflecting a deep understanding that cities around the world are facing different challenges and have access to different levels of resources,” said Yves Daccord, a member of the Seoul Smart City Prize Steering Committee and chairman of the Edgelands Institute.

“One of the elements that makes this prize so unique is that the selection criteria are carefully designed to capture both the current trends in smart city development and the respective stages of development, capabilities and resources of each case.”

  At this year’s ceremony — the second edition since the prize was established in September 2022 — 20 cities, companies and institutes received awards in the categories of human centricity, tech innovation and leadership, as well as special mentions.

According to the Seoul Metropolitan Government, the prize was created to “resolve the issue of polarization and to motivate the inclusive growth of cities globally.”

This year, some 280 applications were submitted, with many coming from Asia, Africa and the Middle East, according to Danil Kerimi, a member of the oversight advisory committee at the World Intellectual Property Organization and a member of the organizing committee for the Seoul Smart City Prize.

The two silver prizes went to Miri, Malaysia, and Curitiba, Brazil, while three bronze awards were given to Kragujevac, Serbia, Bilbao, Spain, and Taoyuan, Taiwan for the human-centric category. For the tech-innovative category, the two silver prizes went to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates and Dine from Santa Monica in the United States, with three bronze awards given to Cali in Colombia, Ecolant from Korea and WeavAr Sp Zoo from Warsaw, Poland.

Before the awards ceremony on Thursday, last year’s prize winners shared their success stories of integrating technology into policies to improve citizens’ lives during the Smart City Performance Sharing Conference.

The city of Odense in Denmark received last year’s gold prize for adopting a digital platform called LEAP — short for Leadership, Empowerment and Advocacy for the People — which successfully “enhanced democratic dialogue between citizens and the city.”

“Like many other OECD countries, we are struggling with declining trust in the political system and civil administration,” said Kaare Pedersen, head of the city mayor’s office, during his presentation, explaining why the platform was needed.

“There is a need to bridge the gap between politicians and administration on one side and citizens and civil society on the other, because smart cities are nothing without the support and trust of our smart citizens.”

According to Pedersen, the implementation of the digital platform — such as hosting digital town hall meetings — helped attract younger participants.

Participatory budgeting was another method the city used to involve citizens in the decision-making process.

“It fostered both a common understanding and trust in the decisions being made,” he said.

Bruno Lanvin, president of the International Institute for Management Development’s Smart City Observatory, highlighted the importance of developing smart cities based on “exchanging experiences with others, attracting talent from around the world, and mixing values, philosophies, religions and views of the future” during his keynote speech.

The three-day SLW event attracted more than 20,000 participants from 72 countries, 155 cities and institutes and 147 companies, all gathering under this year’s theme of “human-centric tech, connected to a better life.”  

The city government hopes to host the event annually, with next year’s event scheduled to take place from Sept. 30 to Oct. 2.

“The smart city that Seoul aims to become is not a cold, mechanical high-tech city,” said Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon in his speech at the event’s opening ceremony on Thursday.  

“Rather, it’s a city full of warmth and humanity. We dream of a smart city that invites everyone to experience the benefits of digital technology and grow together.”

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