How blockchain becomes an essential building block of the smart city
Smart cities are widely seen as the all-in-one platform of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and we wanted to share a contributed column that lays out in detail how blockchain can be put to work as an essential building block for them. If you define a smart city as a sustainable city that connects information technology and networks to deliver new value beyond the traditional functions of a city, then blockchain — able to supply security and trust for the observation, analysis, control, and improvement of data that creates that value — is indispensable. And it can be applied not only to collecting and sharing data but across a range of areas: contracts and transactions between devices, rewards for participatory citizen services, and guarantees of individual data rights. You can read the article in full at the link at the bottom of this post.
ICONLOOP, too, is continuing to collaborate on bringing its own blockchain technology to smart city development. In September last year, for instance, we signed a business agreement with Pohang City, POSCO, and POSTECH to build a Pohang data ecosystem — an effort to grow Pohang into a hub city for the data industry leading the advanced data economy and to raise the quality of life for Pohang residents. Since that agreement we have been working together, on the strength of ICONLOOP's own DID technology, to build the digital ID ecosystem that any smart city needs. You can find the materials from the time of the MOU at the bottom of this article.
We are also sharing, at the bottom of the article, video of the talk ICONLOOP CEO JH Kim gave on 'Blockchain-Based Cities as a Platform' at the 2019 Seoul Smart City Conference, held as the closing event of Korea Blockchain Week (KBW) in 2019. In that talk, Kim covered how blockchain can solve the problems that arise in a smart city understood as a platform, and shared the smart city businesses ICONLOOP wants to build with its own blockchain technology.
[Column] Where the Smart City Meets Blockchain
Seokhyun Jung, Chair of the Technology Committee, Smart City Blockchain Forum (SBF); Head of New Business Strategy, Realty Bank
Understanding the smart city
If you step away from the dictionary meaning of 'smart' as simply 'clever,' what deserves attention is that it means delivering new functions that go beyond the original ones, thanks to information technology. The main function of a traditional phone was the call; the smartphone, connected through information and communications technology, offers photography, watching movies, games, and other things that could not be done before — and only then can it be said to have become intelligent and smart. In the same way, a smart car can be defined as an automobile, once merely a means of transport, that uses information technology to connect over networks with the home, the office, and the city, delivering new value beyond the driving function it had before.
So shouldn't the definition of a smart city follow along the same lines — that a city can only be called a smart city when the connection of information technology and networks delivers new value beyond the traditional functions of a city? To create that new value beyond the functions a conventional city inherently provides, smart observation and analysis of the various kinds of data the city produces, and improvement drawn from them, have to come first.
From an IT standpoint, smart observation can draw on the Internet of Things (IoT), 5G, and cloud technology; smart analysis on big data analytics and artificial intelligence; and smart control and improvement require an efficient governance structure. The most critical piece at each of these stages is, again, data. But if that data cannot be trusted and the control layer is easily hacked, the basic foundation for delivering new value is bound to be weak.
Blockchain technology is seen as an essential element of the smart city in that it can supply security and trust to these flows of data. And just as currency is needed for transactions between people, virtual assets and smart contracts are expected to become more important still if the many objects that make up a smart city are to interconnect, control one another, and operate.
The government recently amended the Act on Smart City Development and Industry Promotion (the Smart City Act), recognizing smart cities as the all-in-one platform of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and preparing more actively for the current of change in step with the Korean Green New Deal.
Definition of a smart city
→ A sustainable city that provides a variety of urban services on the basis of urban infrastructure built by converging construction and information and communications technologies, in order to improve the city's competitiveness and quality of life
From the recently amended Smart City Act
It is worth noting the part that defines the purpose of a smart city as 'improving the competitiveness of the city and the quality of life of its citizens.' We need to understand that using information and communications technology to draw insight from data analysis and uncover citizens' hidden needs matters no less than designing the city physically.
Using blockchain to collect and share data
Who manages the vast body of data collected across the whole city, and how, is a very important question. If data comes to be collected mainly by particular companies, platform lock-in can only deepen. This is where the importance of blockchain's open, distributed data platform arises. Once a data alliance builds an ecosystem in which the public sector, the private sector, and citizens themselves take part directly, the platform lock-in that follows from concentrated data can be prevented.
Using blockchain for contracts and transactions between devices
In a smart city, countless objects — cars, roads, traffic lights, water and sewage equipment, the many devices inside buildings — interconnect and share data. In that device-to-device data exchange, the areas where blockchain can be applied are machine-to-machine payment (M2M Payment), security of things, and the automation process.
Virtual assets can handle small-value payments efficiently in services such as personal mobility vehicle sharing, demand-responsive mobility, and smart parking, and combined with IoT devices they can contribute to raising the city's efficiency and improving citizens' quality of life through machine-to-machine payments in a range of fields such as ultra-short-term insurance and energy trading management. Smart contract technology provided by blockchain is likewise expected to be able to control automation between devices safely and efficiently.
If the transparency and traceability of blockchain are put to use, citizens can look up transaction records for things such as the environment or charitable giving transparently at any time, which can contribute greatly to a healthier society and higher trust. Detailed records of how funding and subsidies are operated, local government budget decisions, new taxes, and other information that must be disclosed to citizens can be recorded on a blockchain and monitored through an app that makes it easy to access.
Using blockchain to reward participatory citizen services
Virtual assets can be used as rewards for the many activities citizens take part in. For example, food waste or waste disposal fees could be issued as tokens, so that households that throw away less are rewarded with tokens and can use those tokens to buy garbage bags. Cooperative behavior that helps run the city more pleasantly, safely, and efficiently can be rewarded fairly, and important local decisions can be run transparently using blockchain-based voting.
Using blockchain to guarantee individual data rights
DID (Decentralized Identity) technology is characterized by using blockchain to deliver decentralized services. Europe's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the United States' Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights both recommend strengthening the data subject's authority over personal data so that individuals can control their own data directly. DID will contribute greatly to identity verification in smart cities and to improving individual data rights.
In Korea, the DID Alliance centered on Raonsecure, ICONLOOP's MyID, and SK Telecom's Initial D, among others, are running pilot projects and proof-of-concept trials.
Research is needed to grasp citizens' hidden needs and context
In Europe, data alliance projects are under way to build the data ecosystem needed to guarantee data sovereignty. For such a data alliance to succeed, we need to keep uncovering citizens' hidden needs and finding scenarios that appeal to citizens directly. The scenarios for a smart city are truly limitless. Citizens can take part alongside industry domain experts and IT specialists to design the functions of a city anew.
The government has already launched Smart City Korea, and along with establishing a range of policies it has prepared programs such as the Smart Challenge and the smart city regulatory exemption system, while setting up and running governance that spans a convergence alliance of central government, local governments, academia, and industry.
- Source: CCTV News
- Original: http://www.cctvnews.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=222895
Go see the materials on the MOU signed by ICONLOOP with Pohang City, POSCO, POSTECH and others to build a Pohang data ecosystem ▼
Watch ICONLOOP CEO JH Kim's talk on 'Blockchain-Based Cities as a Platform' ▼
Life Meets Blockchain, ICONLOOP