The mayor of Seoul, Park Won-soon recently unveiled a five-year plan to invest a hefty $108 million in order to develop the South Korean capital into that of a blockchain-powered smart city.

During his recent visit to Zurich, Won-soon delivered a speech in which he announced details for the Blockchain Urban Plan for 2018 – 2022 which will cover 14 public services in 5 areas with the total government funding amounting to 123.3 billion Korean won which is about $108 million.

The main public service areas which will adopt blockchain include labour welfare, vehicle history management, certification issuance, elections & donation management said Park.

Park explained that, for example, the Seoul Metropolitan Government plans to utilise the technology in an effort to protect part-time workers who are without labour contracts or who don’t possess any employment insurance.

These part-time workers will be able to register by use of a blockchain application which is to be developed as part of the rollout. Following that, labour welfare organisations & insurance companies which will participate on the blockchain as nodes, will be able to share information about workers over a distributed network & make decisions about insurance policies.

Park also disclosed that his administration has plans to spend an additional 60 billion won ($53 million), to build two complexes by as earlier as 2021 in order to house 200 blockchain startups and plans to utilise parts of the Gaepo Digital Innovation Park & Mapo Seoul Startup Hub in order to achieve this.

Park’s plan comes but mere months after he won the re-election campaign as mayor of Seoul back in June. Park also promised he would increase support for blockchain development in Seoul by developing the Mapo district as a centre for blockchain incubation as part of his new campaign.

This plan for Seoul also falls in line with South Korea’s Ministry of ICT’s roadmap announced in June in which the office announced that they will be investing up to $9 million in the years to come in order to be the leaders in blockchain adoption in six major public service areas.

Could Seoul become the next blockchain haven? Could this adoption lead to international blockchain startups settling in the Asian country? Let us know your thoughts.

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