i3 - January/February 2020 - 78

Policy

By Cindy Loffler Stevens

P O L I CY I N ACT I O N

Mayor Park Won-soon
Talks about Seoul: A
World Class Smart City

olling out a true smart city takes a lot of experience.
Born in a village in Changnyeong, South Gyeongsang
Province, South Korea, in 1956, Park Won-soon entered
Seoul National University in 1975, and shortly after, was arrested
for participating in a student protest against the militant dictatorship of President Park Chung Hee. He was imprisoned for
four months and expelled from university. Later, he earned a
bachelor's degree in history from Dankook University.

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

the Ramon Magsaysay Award, called
the "Nobel Prize of Asia."
Park was elected as Mayor of Seoul in
October 2011 as an independent candidate, with the support of the Democratic
Party and the Democratic Labor Party.
His slogan was "the citizens are the
mayor" and he pursued collaborative
governance with citizens in the policy
decision-making process. He realized
the importance of strengthening city-tocity cooperation while tackling common
challenges. He assumed leadership
responsibilities in government organizations, such as WeGO, an organization to
promote e-governance and smart cities,
GSEF, an organization to find solutions
to social problems through social economy, ICLEI, C40 and more.
He was re-elected as Mayor in June
2014 for a second term, and then again
in June 2018 for a third term. He is the
longest serving mayor of Seoul in the
history of South Korea. He talked with
i3 about Seoul as one of the first smart
cities in the world.

Q What makes a city smart?
A The "dynamics of the city" and the "participation of citizens" are the factors that
make a city smart. A "smart city" is the product of mankind's agony and introspection
on how to make life happier and fuller, and

the output of both the city and the citizens
by actively realizing and using state-of-theart technologies. Moreover, a smart city has
become the most useful method to enhance
the quality of life of citizens and an efficient
tool to resolve global urban challenges.
Beyond its dominant status as the best
global e-government in the world for seven
consecutive years, Seoul is now leaping
forward as a leading smart city in the world
based on big data and new technologies of
the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
More than anything else, the voluntary
participation of Seoul citizens and the combination of new attempts and innovative
challenges utilizing cutting-edge technologies by the public and private sectors are
making Seoul's own smart city differentiate
itself from other cities. The "Digital Mayor's
Office" on one side of my office symbolizes
the status of Seoul as a global smart city. It
is a smart city digital platform where I can
see the status of the entire city at a glance in
real time. It is one of the indispensable practices that the world's mayors and delegations learn when they visit Seoul. Professor
Susan Crawford of the Harvard Law School
highly praised it as the sprout of democracy. It is a representative item of Seoul to
I T I S I N N O VAT I O N

Portrait: Juni Lee

Park passed the state bar examinations
in 1980 and worked as a public prosecutor in the Daegu District Court in
Gyeongsang Province from 1982 to
1983. Returning to Seoul, he launched
into private practice as a human rights
lawyer defending political activists. In
1991, Park earned a diploma in international law at the London School of
Economics and Political Science in the
University of London. In 1993, he went
to the U.S. as a visiting research fellow
in the Human Rights Program of the
School of Law at Harvard University.
Back in South Korea in 1995, Park
founded the People's Solidarity for
Participatory Democracy, a nonprofit,
nonpartisan civic organization formed
to promote democracy and secure
human rights in South Korea. In 2001,
he founded the Beautiful Foundation
to promote a culture of philanthropy
in South Korea. And in 2002, he
founded the Beautiful Store, a secondhand store to spread the culture of giving and sharing with others. In 2006,
Park founded the Hope Institute, a
think tank with the goal of applying
policy alternatives based on the ideas of
ordinary citizens. Known as a "social
designer," Park has dedicated his career
to bringing about fresh change. In
2006, his efforts were recognized with

i3 - January/February 2020

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