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Gwangju City News
Reprinted with permission from Gwangju Metropolitan City Hall Photographs courtesy of Gwangju Metropolitan City Hall
Mayor Lee (center) at the launching of the Uihyang City Gwangju legal support group.
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Uihyang City Gwangju, a legal support group, set up to protect citizens who have been victimized by “fake news” and the spread of false facts, began its operations on March 16. Gwangju City held an invitational ceremony in the business room of city hall, at which Mayor Lee Yong-seop gave a letter of recommendation to six lawyers appointed as Uiwang City Gwangju legal support members. The support group provides legal services such as legal rights counseling and litigation representation for citizens who have suffered rights infringements or psychological distress from the dissemination of false facts through SNS, fake news, and defamation. Gwangju City is the first nationwide metropolitan government to implement such a system for citizens who have been unable to exercise their legal rights due to financial difficulties despite suffering mental and material damages due to fake news. The six appointed legal aids are local lawyers who are active in the region and are responsible for investigating the requirements and facts of claims for damages received during their two-year terms: one-to-one counseling, litigation representation, and criminal relief, as well as performing other necessary services. Any citizen who has been adversely affected by social media may apply for counseling and legal assistance at Uihyang City Gwangju (phone: 062-613-2774), and if the claim is selected by the Civil Rights Commission after screening, the claimant can receive legal assistance through consultation and investigation. At the ceremony, Mayor Lee Yong-seop stated, “Our Gwangju is historically inclined to justice, but in many cases, innocent citizens suffer from unjust events happening in everyday life. We will once again take the lead in safeguarding justice in the human-rights city of Gwangju by launching Uihyang City Gwangju to deal with fake news more quickly and protect the human rights of citizens who have been alienated from the legal network.” Gwangju Launches Legal Support Group to Protect Citizens
Mayor Lee (center) at the consultations with Telstar Hommel and Infoworks.
Gwangju to Start Building Foundation for Tomorrow’s Auto Industry G wangju City has started a full-scale consultation with Telstar Hommel, a smart-factory builder, and with Infoworks, a self-driving car sensortechnology developer, to foster the future car industry to prepare for a major transformation of the manufacturing industry in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. On March 17, Mayor Lee Yong-seop met with Lim Byung-hoon, CEO of Telstar Hommel, and Park Hyeonjoo, CEO of Inforworks, the company that launched the first NPU-based artificial intelligence edge computer development board in Korea, and the three agreed to cooperate in fostering the future car industry in Gwangju. Telstar Hommel is a Hyundai Motor partner and has secured a smart-factory platform that combines ICT technology based on facility manufacturing technology in the automotive powertrain field, and the company also chairs a consortium of smart-factory platform suppliers of the Small and Medium Business Technology Innovation Association. Telstar Hommel also signed an MOU with KT in April last year to develop smart-factory solutions based on 5G Edge Cloud. Through the smart-factory project under discussion, the city fuses and develops 5G technology while Telstar Hommel’s process, and automation analysis solutions will gather numerous types of sensor information coming from industrial sites to the Edge Communication Center to monitor the real-time process and help maintain optimal productivity through artificial intelligence analysis. In addition, Telstar Hommel is expected to cooperate to predict defect rates based on big-data analysis and efficiently maintain equipment in each process. The smart-factory business is a connected system that makes use of data to cope with increasing business demands by rapidly converting various types of smallvolume production systems for mass production, and quickly producing products that consumers demand at a low cost. Gwangju City is in discussions with the Green Car Promotion Agency, KT, and Telstar Hommel to promote the smart-factory business at the Light Green Industrial Complex, while the Gwangju Green Car Promotion
Agency and Telstar Hommel have signed a business agreement and are shaping their collaboration.
In the future, the three plan to recruit companies that are willing to participate in the smart-factory business. To promote the smart-factory project in Gwangju, Telstar Hommel has sent a taskforce to the Green Car Promotion Agency and is considering establishing an artificial intelligence research center in Gwangju.
Inforworks is a company that has released the RK1808 chipset-based artificial intelligence embedded development board “Rex Basic” that can be used for industrial purposes and learning based on the neural processing unit (NPU), the core of the AI era.
To ensure the reliability of self-driving systems, Gwangju City, the Korea Automobile Research Institute, and Inforworks have decided to cooperate for enhancing object recognition of self-driving vehicles that require long-term testing in poor conditions and to develop technologies to utilize artificial intelligence-based vehicle internal and external convergence sensors to diagnose faults. Mayor Lee Yong-seop stated, “Gwangju is directing all its resources to end the COVID-19 crisis,” and adding, “On the one hand, in order to foster future business models in Gwangju, we will build a foundation for the production and research environment of future cars by building a smart factory and linking artificial intelligence with the automotive industry to develop sensors for selfdriving cars and create a solid footing for the future car production and research environment in our city.”
Mayor Lee (right) at the consultations with Telstar Hommel and Infoworks.
▲ Nonghyup and farmers’ organizations’ representatives during discussions.
On March 17, discussions were held with Nonghyup (National Agricultural Cooperative Federation) and farmers’ organizations related to using online and local food stores. City Hall held the meeting in the deputy mayor’s office to promote measures for the agricultural sector in response to COVID-19. Presided over by Cho In-chul, deputy mayor of culture and economy, the meeting was attended by farmers’ organizations, including the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation, the local Agricultural Cooperative Federation (Pyeongdong Agricultural Cooperative Federation and Gwangju Horticultural Cooperative), and the Gwangju Farmers’ Association. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss damaging trends in the agricultural sector and future countermeasures at a time when COVID-19’s spread is causing continued price declines in agricultural products due to the deferred school year, a decline in the food service industry, and difficulties in securing markets for farm products. As agricultural products delivered as school meals were shipped to the wholesale market, the trading volume in the wholesale market increased 17.2 percent compared to
the same period last year, but the average price for each item was found to fluctuate greatly depending on the quantity and demand of imported goods. At the roundtable discussions, Gwangju City made plans to cooperate with the Nonghyup Gwangju Regional Headquarters and other regional agricultural cooperatives to expand direct sales through online marketing and through local food stores. City Hall plans to first encourage consumption of agricultural products that cannot be delivered for school meals due to the postponement of the school year and will continue to promote consumption of Korean products in the future. “We have arranged this meeting so that no citizen will be left out in this difficult situation due to the spread of COVID-19,” said Deputy Mayor Cho In-chul. “Let us all work together to overcome this crisis so that farmers’ financial losses can be minimized.”
