Gyeonggi Province Establishes Five-Point Response Strategy for Fourth Industrial Revolution for Humanity

[Suwon Ilbo = Reporter Park No-hun] In response to the Fourth Industrial Revolution era, Gyeonggi Province has formulated a provincial-level response strategy to strengthen industrial competitiveness and improve the quality of life for residents. The province announced on the 15th that it has established the 'Gyeonggi Province Fourth Industrial Revolution Promotion Basic Plan' and will pursue five major strategies through 2022.

This basic plan was established because, as the Fourth Industrial Revolution through digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and big data accelerates, there is a need for systematic provincial measures to ensure that new scientific technologies become 'technology for humanity.'

To this end, the province enacted the 'Ordinance on the Promotion of Fourth Industrial Revolution in Gyeonggi Province' in November of last year to establish legal grounds, and has been discovering flagship projects to include in the basic plan through the 'Gyeonggi Province Fourth Industrial Revolution Committee,' which launched in February of this year.

In particular, Governor Lee Jae-myung stated at the launch ceremony of the Fourth Industrial Revolution Committee in February this year, "The essence of the Fourth Industrial Revolution is technology for humanity, a shared future, and innovation that improves quality of life," and emphasized that "political attention is necessary to prevent new technologies from becoming a means of pursuing the interests of a select few."

Accordingly, the basic plan aims to realize a 'Happy Gyeonggi Province where residents thrive in the Fourth Industrial Revolution era' and includes five major strategies and 17 implementation tasks: ▲future society with residents ▲building foundations for future industries ▲spreading resident-felt innovative services ▲support for adaptation of marginalized communities to future technologies ▲establishing a fair economy ecosystem.

Specifically, for 'future society with residents,' three tasks will be pursued including operating future industry cooperation organizations and Fourth Industrial Revolution working groups; for 'building foundations for future industries,' four tasks including activating future technologies and creating global innovation hubs; for 'spreading resident-felt innovative services,' four tasks including activating artificial intelligence services based on big data and creating a safe digital environment; for 'support for adaptation of marginalized communities to future technologies,' three tasks including narrowing the digital divide and expanding basic income; and for 'establishing a fair economy ecosystem,' three tasks including making data public assets and activating platform cooperativism will each be implemented.

Accordingly, the province will advance technology development and commercialization in the robotics and drone, autonomous vehicle, and smart factory sectors, and pursue intelligentization in the agricultural and fishery, logistics and port, and transportation sectors. The province will also establish innovation clusters to promote the Fourth Industrial Revolution, aiming to vitalize innovative startups and create high-quality jobs.

Furthermore, to prevent the creation of new technologies from becoming a means of pursuing the interests of a few, the province will prepare various support measures targeting marginalized communities, and establish a 'fair economy ecosystem' where the benefits of the Fourth Industrial Revolution are equitably distributed through improved worker rights and enhanced data publicness.

To this end, the province has allocated a budget of 123 billion won across 67 projects based on this year's provincial budget, and plans to allocate 134 billion won across 82 projects next year.

Jung-shik Kong, head of the Future Industry Division, stated, "Based on the 'Gyeonggi Province Fourth Industrial Revolution Promotion Basic Plan' that has been established, we plan to concretize and implement it through working group discussions and other means," and added, "We ask for the cooperation and interest of residents so that Gyeonggi Province's Fourth Industrial Revolution can proceed smoothly going forward."