TECHNOLOGY IN ASSISTING COMMUNITIES

[Anchor Lead]

The advent of digital technology has brought many positive changes to our lives. One of them is to enable people to come up with solutions to problems in their communities and make them better places to live. We have the details on how technology is changing scenes in our everyday life.

[Pkg]

A group of people heads off to somewhere, holding their smartphones. They stop at a sidewalk with a worn-out chair on it.

[Soundbite] "Someone left a used chair here. How about installing more chairs?"

On their smartphones, they draw up a map of areas where chairs need to be placed for elderly people using public transportation.

[Soundbite] CHO SUN-JU(COMMUNITY ACTIVIST) : "In the smartphone app, we directly register areas where chairs are needed to be placed."

Citizens volunteer to crack down on illegally parked vehicles in a child protection zone. They attach notices and take photos of the vehicles with a smartphone application.

[Soundbite] "Children can run out any time. It looks very dangerous."

After a great deal of work and nighttime patrols, they draw up a map of 106 areas plagued by illegal parking. With these active efforts, the residents were able to win a budget of more than 23 billion won needed for building a parking lot. On Imja-do Island, the Internet of Things technology is used to care for elderly people living alone or suffering from dementia. Thanks to the system's location tracing and breath recognition functions, the emergency conditions of the elderly are immediately reported to the district office. The government plans to use these cases to expand such apps to other regions.