The City of Busan and the Busan Center for Creative Economy and Innovation are launching "Solution Living Lab," a citizen-participation smart city demonstration program. The initiative allows citizens to directly experience startup products and services and provide feedback, with a focus on supporting market validation and commercialization for local innovative companies.
Busan and the Busan Center for Creative Economy and Innovation announced Wednesday that they are recruiting citizen participants for the Solution Living Lab through Dec. 3, as part of the "2026 Smart City Living Lab Operation Activation Project."
Solution Living Lab is a citizen-participation demonstration program that connects startups with innovative smart city solutions to citizens, allowing products and services to be validated in real-life environments. Citizens evaluate functionality and improvement potential from an end-user perspective, while startups use this feedback to enhance product completeness and marketability.
Four innovative startups based in Busan are participating in this year's program: Songgang Networks, Ark International, LMSS and The Face.
Songgang Networks will showcase an "IoT alert service for priority seats for pregnant women," while Ark International will present an "AI-based pedestrian safety smart pole." LMSS will demonstrate a "fall protection smart airbag vest" designed to enhance safety at industrial sites, and The Face will demonstrate a "smart dry room" for pets.
The Busan Center for Creative Economy and Innovation plans to select around 24 Busan citizens as participants, matching approximately six citizens to each company. Selection will be based on a comprehensive review of motivation, capabilities and preferred demonstration company listed in the application.
Selected participants will attend a matching day on Dec. 18 at the Busan Center for Creative Economy and Innovation, where they will receive information about the program's operation and demonstration procedures. From June, they will spend about a month experiencing startup products and services firsthand and proposing ideas for functional improvements. Mid-program meet-ups between startups and citizens will also be held during the demonstration process to share inconveniences and improvement directions.
Participants will receive 300,000 won per person as a demonstration activity allowance. One outstanding citizen participant from each company will receive an additional incentive of 200,000 won, along with a program completion certificate. Application details are available on the Busan Center for Creative Economy and Innovation website and the Busan Startup Portal.
"This Solution Living Lab is a program in which citizens contribute to the growth of local startups and the realization of a smart city by directly experiencing startup products and services and proposing improvement opinions," an official at the Busan Center for Creative Economy and Innovation said. "We look forward to active participation from citizens interested in innovative startups and the smart city sector."
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Cho Won-jin
Dieser Artikel ist neu veröffentlicht von / This article is republished from: Seoul Economic Daily, 19.05.2026
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