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2022. December VOL. 657
- 2022. December VOL. 657
- ENG
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2022. December VOL. 657
1
K-water made a USD 70,000 donation to the Pakistani government on October 24 to help the victims of the devastating floods that hit Pakistan in August.
The donated money will be used to deliver relief goods for displaced Pakistani people and repair flood damages in Southern Pakistan regions hit hardest by the floods including the provinces of Balochistan, Sindh, and Gilgit-Baltistan.
In addition, K-water provided relief items including blankets and everyday necessities worth USD 30,000 to more than 500 households near the Patrind Hydroelectric Power Plant that K-water is constructing, and K-water employees were directly involved in relief efforts including repairing roads and buildings to help local residents return to normal as soon as possible.
K-water has been working on the Patrind Hydroelectric Power Generation Project under the ‘Power Policy 2002’ of the Pakistani government to help the country deal with serious power shortages.
2
K-water recruited 40 scholarship recipients for the ‘3rd-Phase Future Growth Scholarship Program’ from November 3 to 16, 2022.
The recipients were selected from among first year middle school students from families with household income of 150% or less of the median income and living in areas where K-water branches are located or dams are operating.
Eligible students need a letter of recommendation signed by the school principal. The selected students receive 1.5 million won worth of scholarship per year for up to two years and a growth support package including mentoring, experts’ lectures, and career consulting on their areas of interest and future career.
Since 2021, K-water has been running a future growth scholarship program called ‘K-water Scholarship’ to help local youths with dreams and potential grow as future human resources.
The scholarship is provided to approximately 200 local middle and high school students living in areas near dams or where K-water is operating its businesses for the purpose of nurturing future human resources over the long term. The scholarship program is different since it continues to support recipient students for an extended period of time until they graduate from school to help them increase their chances of fulfilling their dreams.
K-water recruits new first year students each year to replace the existing recipient students who graduate.
3
The Nam River Dam Branch held the “Green Chok Chok Festival,” a participatory festival organized in collaboration with community enterprises, social enterprises, and youth enterprises, on November 6, 2002.
‘Green Chok Chok’ is the branch’s environmental and social value brand created by the K-water Citizens’ Design Group(the ‘True’ Environmental Community-Building Project for Nam River Dam) formed by citizens, college students, and experts.
It seeks to serve as a ‘true’ environmental platform that promotes and spreads environmental values and supports the sales growth of community enterprises, social enterprises, and youth enterprises. Opened with the pledge on ‘Our Promises for Green Earth’ by the ‘Climate Angels of Gyeongsangnam-do Education Office’ made up of local elementary and middle school students, the festival featured a variety of environmental experience programs taking place at ‘Eight Green Zones’, ‘Enlightenment Green Zone’, ‘Play Green Zone’, ‘Rest Green Zone’, and ‘Eating Green Zone’ that have been created in different parts of Sunset Park.
The festival is scheduled to take place every first week of November and is expected to grow as the largest local environmental festival featuring Nam River.
4
On November 8, K-water and Lotte On signed an MOU on joint social contribution projects to promote shared growth with local communities.
The MOU was aimed at seeking ICT-based ways to achieve mutual growth and cooperation with local communities, based on a consensus between the two organizations on the need for senior care, one of the growing social problems in Korea.
Under the MOU, they plan to carry out the ‘Community Welfare Center in My Home’, a public-private joint social contribution project taking advantage of AI speakers with focus on senior community welfare centers near dams operated by K-water. For this project, Lotte On pledged to donate 1,000 units of AI speakers developed in-house. 1,000 elderly residents will be chosen to receive an AI speaker including digital education and remote welfare services such as installation of the speaker, how to use it, and group education sessions.
The elderly residents participating in the ‘project’ can enjoy sports, cultural activities, and other welfare services without visiting their local community welfare center in person.
5
K-water has been offering the ‘water meter freeze and rupture service’ since November 10 to minimize recurring cold damages to water meters every winter.
The service, which is available to anyone via the mobile app ‘Water Now’ and the National Water Supply Information System(www.waternow.go.kr), uses the 4th Industrial Revolution technology to measure the temperature inside the water meter container in real time, classify freeze and rupture risks into four levels, and provide regionally customized information services.
With the opening of the service, residents in 22 communities—where the local water supply operational efficiency improvement project is underway to introduce the ‘smart metering system’ including the remote water meter reader, will be provided with water bills estimated in real time and individually customized water information services based on their water use patterns via ‘Water Now’. The service will be made available to other regions based on a demand survey and the outcomes obtained from these 22 communities.
6
The ‘2022 K-water Big Data Contest’ was held on November 15, 2022 to create new values and improve services for citizens by integrating water-related big data and 4th Industrial Revolution technologies.
Under the theme ‘Create Insight through Integration of Water Data, Big Data, and AI Technology’, contest participants were divided into two groups: ‘citizens and K-water employees’.
Since the public invitation was released in April, a total of 61 teams or 143 individuals submitted their entries and went through a preliminary screening process. Finally, 8 teams were shortlisted to present their ideas at the contest. The winners were determined by a panel of judges, and votes were cast by all K-water employees. Two teams won the grand prize, two teams, first prize, and four, second prize.
△ From the citizens’ group, a team from Hanyang University won the grand prize for the ‘water storing capacity prediction program based on prediction of evapotranspiration and sedimentary amount’. △ From the K-water employees’ group, ‘the Jeongeup branch won the grand prize for the water-leaking location detection model based on water pressure data’.
