Hancom aims to be leader in smart city technology

Hancom Group, famous for its Korean-language word processing program, is aiming to be a future leader in smart city technology.

The company held a press event on Thursday to introduce the software and robots that are part of its grand plan to become a major supplier of smart city technology.

Among the projects it introduced were a big data system that shows timely information on the city’s traffic and accidents and a blockchain platform that can reduce paperwork and save documents signed at public offices. A monitoring tool for firefighters and humanoid robots that help with directions were shown as well.

Some of the technology is already in use while some, like the big data system, is still under development. Hancom aims to increase the proportion of these new businesses to account for 50 percent of its revenue by 2020.

“The days when major companies competed with one single product are over. Now, the competition is about building a platform in which many external programs can work,” said Chairman Kim Sang-chul.

“Smart cities are more like a huge ecosystem that embeds recent technology in numerous fields from education, landscape and energy to self-driving cars. Korea needs a smart city ecosystem that local companies can share and actively develop items in this field.”

While most Koreans only recognize Hancom for its word processing software, the group has been actively acquiring companies that specialize in fields like blockchain, robotics and mobile devices.

To apply this technology in reality, Hancom Group partnered with Seoul City last year as a member of the Seoul Affia Consortium. It is already operating a test bed for new technologies in a 1.8 million-square-meter (445 acre) area in Gapyeong, Gyeonggi.

BY SONG KYOUNG-SON [song.kyoungson@joongang.co.kr]