Cities of the Future: Songdo, South Korea – Work and Business
A short plane ride from China and Japan, Songdo International Business District is uniquely positioned to become a premier business hub in Northeast Asia. Episode 3 of the series.
Songdo, South Korea, is capturing the world’s attention. A newly constructed city, it combines cutting edge urban planning with an infrastructure built on state of the art network technology. Developers hope Songdo will attract companies wanting to do business in the region. It’s already transforming the way people work, and providing a model for other cities everywhere.
Stan Gale, Chairman, Gale International: The concept behind it is that this would become the central focal point and a main alternative for large-scale companies looking to do business in Japan, China and Korea.
Songdo’s premier business address stands at 1000 feet, and is South Korea’s tallest skyscraper.
Scott Summers, Vice President, Gale International: The North East Asia Trade Tower is a mixed-use building. The idea that people can come in from overseas, live, work within that building (and) the convention center behind (is) really, from an architectural standpoint, one of the main features here in Songdo.
All of Songdo’s commercial buildings are linked by an advanced citywide network, designed to help businesses operate with extreme efficiency.
Scott Summers: The various systems in a building can now talk with each other within one command center to manage how the individual buildings function,.(and) save costs in terms of energy consumption.
Songdo’s network infrastructure also enables video technology that helps people communicate face to face with unprecedented ease.
John Baekelmans, Chief Technology Officer, Smart + Connected Communities, Cisco: People have inside of every home, TelePresence capabilities. So In the businesses, we have deployed enterprise TelePresence to ensure people can connect from their home to their business or even from business to business. Receptionists who are sitting remote and who can actually, from remote, open doors, print badges.
Stan Gale: Having a fully-connected presence, a smart and connected community cuts out the wasted time and energy that we all have during the day getting to and from places.
Across the globe, smart cities like Songdo are adopting telepresence technology to reduce costs and carbon footprints. But by 2016, Songdo will outpace them all with more than 20,000 units deployed citywide.
