CITYNET and the International Information Technology Policy Program (ITPP) at Seoul National University signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on February 17, 2014 to foster collaboration between the two organizations, and cooperation for mutual benefit through the exchange of knowledge and best practices. Both organizations have agreed to implement joint projects, workshops, conferences, and research to further develop CITYNET member cities.

ITPP will extend its support to CITYNET for collaborative projects with the Korean IT Promotion Agency (NIPA), Korean National Information Society Agency (NIA) as well as the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) on information and communications technologies (ICT) and e-government promotion in CITYNET member cities.

This collaboration will engage graduate students under the ITPP Program through projects aimed at creating change, and developing new ventures (e.g., case studies, classroom projects based on real world issues) for sustainable urban development. One of the outcomes targeted in the MoU is the publication of the CITYNET member cities’ e-government readiness and performance index.

ITPP has shown its commitment to promote CityApp 2014, CITYNET’s flagship project, by participating and sharing the state-of-the-art knowledge and practices to the CityApp contestants and other participants during the event in Kathmandu in March 2014.

In short, the partnership of CITYNET with ITPP will enhance the quality of interaction for cities by opening new channels of understanding and information sharing for the sheer benefit of the data-intensive ever-growing urbanized world.