is Coming to Korea - Korea IT Times

Open Incheon
Comming Soon:
Ubiquitous
Business Town
planned for 2010 to 2014. The main
goal of Incheon is to become a hub of
Northeast Asia in business, IT, BT, trading,
and education and more. To accomplish
the goal, Incheon has set a slogan
to build "Compact, Smart, and
Green" City.
Commissioner
Lee Heon-seok
Asia has risen as one of major economic
sectors of the world. With the growing
economic power of China, especially,
Northeast Asia takes an important role in
the global economy. Korea is geographically
surrounded by countries like China,
Japan, and Russia. Being close to global
economic leaders could be either an advantage
or a disadvantage. Korea is looking
to survive and compete in a fierce global
market. Among all cities in Korea,
Incheon is striving to become an enginge
of growth for the Korean economy through
Incheon Free Economic Zone (IFEZ). It
has been six years since IFEZ has started
and the second phase of development is
40 KOREA IT TIMES | February 2010
IFEZ's 3 main strategies -
"Compact", "Smart", and
"Green" City
"Compact City" means the autonomous
city built in a highly concentrated area, but
it is very efficient at the same time. The concept
was applied to IFEZ's Songdo City. In
a radius of 5 km, there are buildings for
businesses, residence, education, hospitals,
shopping, and tours. The 68-story NEATT
(Northeast Asia Trade Center) will be completed
this year and the 151-story Incheon
Tower is expected to be finished by 2014.
Near the offices buildings, there is Songdo
Central Park where sea water is used to
build lakes in the park. Many international
schools such as North Carolina and New
York State Universities are ready to be
opened in 'Songdo Global Campus' Also,
Seoul National University and Johns
Hopkins University will manage the international
hospital together. "Songdo is a
self-sufficient city with highly concentrated
development," said the Commissioner
Lee Heon-seok. The successful cases of
compact city like Crossing of Mountain
view, U.S. and Roppongi Hills, Japan
show the future of compact city. From urban
planning to development, Songdo is
on the track to become the best decentralized
compact city.
"Smart City" is based on IT technology
to raise the standard of living. From planning
to development, the cutting-edge
technology becomes the foundation of the
city's infrastructure. According to the
Commissioner, the city-wide network
"will greatly improve the communication
among people, businesses, and government."
Incheon has recently introduced a
city model so, that visitors can experience
the future of Incheon. The advanced ubiquitous
technology was applied to improve
the communication through wired and
wireless portals and various devices.
Traffic, security, disaster prevention, and
public information is linked to the city
management system to achieve the true
ubiquitous city.
Commissioner Lee explained, "We
hope that when the project is completed,
residents will experience many great bene-