Busan is good

Busan’s ITU conference was a huge success

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Event elevated the city’s stature and helped it become a global ICT hub

 

The 2014 Busan ITU (International Telecommunication Union) Plenipotentiary Conference, often dubbed the“ICT [Information, Communication and Technology] Olympics,” wrapped up on Nov. 7.

 

Busan successfully hosted the large-scale global event for three weeks, thus raising its brand value and proving itself as a global MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions) hub once again.

 

The city’s hosting of the “ICT Olympics,” which was attended by some 3,000 delegates from ITU member nations and around 600,000 local and overseas participants, helped promote Korea as an IT giant.

 

Its economic spinoff effect, amounting to 700 billion won ($644 million), is also deemed to have revitalized the regional economy. The Busan Initiative was also announced at the event, a stepping-stone toward transforming the city into an international center for ICT.

  

Busan City Mayor Suh Byung-soo, for the first time in the ITU conference's history, received a medal at the closing ceremony in recognition of his services as mayor of the city hosting the conference.

 

Busan Metropolitan City garnered many great achievements during the conference: inking a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with global IT company Cisco and national firm SK Telecom to build an Internet of Things (IoT)-based smart city, holding business meetings to attract local and overseas investment from corporations and forming a network of high-profile personnel and famed business tycoons from around the world.

 

Busan City is now planning to go ahead with ITU Plenipotentiary Conference follow-up business such as establishing an ITU University and an ITU Youth Center.

  

“On the back of hosting the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference, we will make Busan a global smart city,” said Busan Mayor Suh Byung-soo.

 

“We will turn Centum City into a state-of-the-art smart ICT valley like America’s Silicon Valley. By 2020, we will construct five ICT fusion clusters: software, cloud, big data, IoT and fusion content.”

 

The source of news: Dynamic Busan