The Korea Water Resources Corp., also known as K-Water, conducted a raffle draw on Thursday to pick out residents for the Busan Eco Delta Smart Village. The Busan Eco Delta Smart Village would house the lucky residents and become the first residential complex of Busan’s smart city project.
The raffle draw event took place at the BEXCO Convention Center in Busan and broadcasted live via YouTube. Thirty-six households selected from the draw and eighteen others selected separately through interviews would complete the participants. A total of 54 households would move into the village complex after a one-year completion of the pre-training program.
K-Water accepted applications from November 11 through December 14 and received around 3,000 submissions. The company screened the hopeful participants in preparation for an opportunity to reside in the smart village before the draw.
The Living Lab
Park Jae-hyeon, K-water CEO, stated that the company appreciates the people’s support for the Busan Eco Delta Smart Village. K-Water would focus its efforts to develop and transform the village into a leading smart city model. The selected households would experience the “living lab” equipped with forty innovative smart technologies applied to smart cities.
The “living lab” denotes a living space to improve housing technologies through personal feedback gathered from residents inside the village. The chosen residents could also stay inside the smart city for free for up to five years.
The Smart Village would showcase home automation, connectivity solutions, advanced water systems, and solar-powered heating systems. An AI sports center would analyze individual health and provide customized exercise plans for each resident. A health center inside the city could also provide consultation with doctors and offer dietary recommendations.
Robots would perform various tasks, including delivery, fine dust measurements, facility checks, garbage recycling, and illegal parking inspections. An eco-friendly “smart farm” would also enable residents to grow vegetables and other plants for sustenance.
The Busan Smart City held its groundbreaking ceremony at the Korea-ASEAN Commemorative Summit with President Moon Jae-in last year. Busan hopes to improve the residents’ quality of life through big data, IoT, and artificial intelligence by 2024.
The president highlighted smart cities’ cooperation as one of the key topics during the summit with ASEAN leaders. Aside from the president, Smart City policy officials from other ASEAN nations also participated in the groundbreaking ceremony.
