Seoul Town Meeting 2012

The Seoul Metropolitan Government held “The 2nd Seoul Town Meeting 2012” in the Global Lounge of Yonsei University on Thursday, August 23. Mayor Park Won Soon and more than 100 international students and foreigners participated in the meeting. Various topics were dealt with and the students’ policy proposals concluded the event.

The Seoul Town Meeting was launched in 2000 and 2012 marked its 13t

h anniversary. So far, the meetings have offered opportunities to for foreigners from diverse backgrounds to talk about the discomforts they experience here in Seoul and ways to improve the daily lives of foreigners living in Seoul. The latest Seoul Town Meeting was combined with “The 5th Seoul International Student Forum (SISF),” which worked for two months in July and August 2012, to present policy changes for the city of Seoul. SISF has been run by the city since 2008. Selected international students in Seoul are required to experience the city administration for two months and to then present their innovative ideas. The goal is to create an environment that foreigners find comfortable. As of the end of March 2012, there are 30,000 international students in Seoul.

The Seoul Town Meeting was finished off with the policy presentations on 6 topics by the 100 international students, who had been divided into 6 groups, that saw and experienced plenty of Seoul’s administration for the two months of July and August. Each team came up with their respective policy ideas through a lot of preparations and meetings.

Seoul International Students Federation SISF 2012 session ended with a meeting with Seoul Mayer this Thursday (Aug23, 2012) 4 PM in Yeonsi University, Seoul South Korea. In SISF the international students along with Korean friends were divided into group of 6, each containing around 15 members. Their role was to indicate a problem in Seoul city and to address that problem. The entire groups put their energies in solving the problems of Seoul to make it a smarter city. We have many official visits and visits for fun and entertainment. In these visits we explore the main organizing bodies of Seoul.

My Team "Group C" members were Khaled Fazily,Nelly Ivanova,Chimi Wangmo,Minseok Kim,SooAh Cho,Zeyuanyu Long,Seowoo Lee, Ju-Yeong Lee, Jingqiu Liu, Jen taie and Rie. I must appreciate their efforts for making our project done. We have submitted our proposal on how to make Seoul smarter in terms of connecting the Seoul Global Centers.

It was a nice opportunity to address the problems to Seoul government, especially in front of Seoul Mayer. He is a nice man as he listen all those problems with indications and their possible solutions very carefully and appreciate these efforts and he promised to solve all those problems very soon. Meanwhile we put him in a flash mob in Uppa Gangnam Style song. And he danced with the SISF 2012. We have lot of fun, games, foods and talent show. That night was special.