© ESE

Today, we introduce you to ESE, an IT solution provider that has grown in line with the development of smart cities in Korea. Let’s hear from company CEO Park Kyung-sik. 

After its foundation in 1998, ESE began to develop software related to design automation and construction engineering. With the development of a ubiquitous city or U-City platform, we participated in the Hwaseong-Dongtan U-City project, the world’s first smart city construction plan and various other smart city projects, including one supported by the Land Ministry. 

A smart city uses information and communications technology to combine urban functions with various industries. The elements comprising a city are connected by networks, like the human nerve system, so it is possible to remotely control public infrastructure such as water, electricity, gas, traffic and telecommunications and to deal with security and disaster issues in a more efficient way. In a smart city, a robot powered by artificial intelligence or AI may help a driver park his or her car. In brief, it is an “intelligent” city that provides safety and convenience. 

ESE is the developer of an innovative integrated smart city control solution that combines a smart city platform with control software. Mr. Park began to prepare for the era of smart cities quite early. 

I’ve kept abreast of the news over the last 40 years since I served in the military. As an engineer, I’ve always been interested in information about engineering and I concluded that future technologies would revolve around smart cities, which would be built with the help of AI and big data technology. With this belief in mind, my company has been concentrating on this part for the last two decades. 

After leaving the military, Park worked as a designer and engineer in the construction industry. As a specialist in city and infrastructure design, he was confident that he would be able to explore a new future if information technology was incorporated into city design. 

So he created ESE, a software developer that embraces the concept of combining construction with IT. The company began to prepare for smart cities as early as the 1990s and developed software for computerizing urban systems and social overhead capital or SOC, such as railways, roads, ports, traffic networks and water resources.  

At the time, a smart city existed only in theory. To help make this dream a reality, ESE hired a number of researchers and technicians, who account for 90 percent of its employees, while conducting countless experiments and tests. Based on its accumulated expertise in constructing future, high-tech cities, the company signed a contract for the Hwaseong-Dongtan U-City project in 2006. The company has since provided its U-city integrated control platform to SOC projects led by government agencies including Korea Railroad, Korea Express Corporation and the National Geographic Information Institute. 

With more than 20 patents, ESE received a presidential award for its smart city integrated control platform on the 16^th Software Industry Day on November 30, 2015. 

Previously, officials executed one system and then another in sequence. In contrast, our Rino-based integrated solution marks different types of information, including accidents, locations of people and images from CCTV cameras, on a situation display board all together so police officers, rescue workers, doctors or officials in charge of managing particular facilities or services can be dispatched to the scene quickly and make swift decisions on what to do. Sharing information is the key to smart management, and it is resolving various urban problems in an efficient way. 

A smart city features a variety of new technologies including software-defined networks and AI convergence services. In order to execute uninterrupted operations, a smart city needs a control platform that integrates and manages various systems effectively. 

So far, urban facilities, traffic networks and disaster prevention centers have run their own control systems independently. But with ESE’s Rino platform, they are all put together into one integrated smart control solution.

Rino provides all the basic functions needed to set up a control center, such as CCTV camera connections, alarm functions, situation display board controls and real-time monitoring. 

Control apps allow for greater control and scope of services. When a traffic control app goes online, for example, Rino can read and respond to traffic information, responding to congested roads, accidents, and other situations. It can also identify uninsured vehicles or cars that have not paid required fees and send the information to the relevant authorities. 

The smart control platform, the first of its kind in the world, had a chance to shine at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics. 

© ESE

Thousands of athletes and officials from 95 countries participated in the PyeongChang Winter Games, with thousands of tourists visiting the alpine town and adjacent areas. For the large-scale international sports event to go smoothly and safely, officials held lengthy discussions on what the most ideal control system would be, ultimately deciding on our Rino platform. It was used for seven control centers, including the main control center of the Olympics as well as the transportation center, the National Police Agency in Gangwon Province, the provincial government and the PyeongChang County Office. The smart city control platform contributed to the safe and successful hosting of the Olympics by handling a lot of traffic and people, security issues and crimes without any setbacks. 

Different kinds of control applications can be installed and operated on Rino, just as newly-added apps on smartphones enable people to use various services. That’s why this solution is described as the smartphone of control systems. After the PyeongChang Olympic Games, countries outside Korea began to recognize ESE’s technology and the convenience of its smart city control platform. 

We’ve tried to promote smart cities in government agencies and local cities over the last 20 years. We’ve also carried out promotional activities for 138 companies around the world that are interested in benchmarking Korean smart cities. Based on trust we have built with those companies, we’re now tapping into markets in China, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. 

Starting with exports to the Philippines in 2015, ESE signed a contract in 2016 to take part in a Chinese smart city project. Indeed, the company is expanding its overseas business aggressively. 

With the construction of smart cities emerging the world over, global investment in smart cities this year is estimated to reach 107 trillion won or 97 billion US dollars. ESE will surely make the most of its experience and technology that it has accumulated for decades, and cut a conspicuous figure in the market with enormous potential.