In December 2016, the world’s first unmanned store, ‘Amazon Go’, appeared at Amazon’s headquarters. Aiss Go, a startup city sharing platform in Pangyo Techno Valley that is growing with the goal of becoming Asia’s Silicon Valley, has challenged Amazon Go.
While Amazon Go promotes itself as a large-scale store in line with the size of a global company called Amazon, Ice Go plans to grow by targeting niche markets such as idle space and remaining space in small business stores, focusing on coexistence with small business owners rather than the company’s profits. .
We met Park Jin-seok, CEO of City Sharing Platform, at the Pangyo Techno Valley Startup Campus and heard about ‘Ice Go,’ a 24-hour artificial intelligence unmanned sales platform based on deep learning for work-life balance of small business owners.
Q1. About Us
CEO Park Jin-seok: City Sharing Platform started as a project hoping to overcome the recession for small business owners and started its business with the goal of ‘the magic of sharing 1 pyeong’. Through the artificial intelligence unmanned vending machine Ice Go, the company aims to make unmanned vending machines smart and even completely unmanned by installing unmanned vending machines in idle spaces, especially small business stores.
Q2. Features of Ice Go
CEO Park Jin-seok: Ice Go is a deep learning-based artificial intelligence (AI) 24-hour unmanned sales platform service. A smart vending machine was completed by introducing computer vision and mass sensors into a small vending machine, and an unmanned store system was created by combining these vending machines with idle space. A cloud-based unmanned vending machine and POS-linked service enables authentication, purchase, and payment in one stop, and it is also possible to analyze customer and sales information through big data analysis.
In particular, a payment system is applied to each vending machine, so it is possible to install an unmanned vending machine of the city sharing platform with just 1 pyeong of idle space. Existing vending machines fixedly released specific products (coffee, beverages, flowers, sanitary products, etc.), so when changing the type of product sold, there was the hassle of having to replace the entire vending machine. Ice Go can freely replace products sold at any time through AI learning (deep learning), and operation and management is easy because the AI camera automatically recognizes products without attaching separate tags and price tags to the products.
In Korea, unmanned alcohol sales are still difficult to implement due to various restrictions. The city sharing platform was selected as a regulatory sandbox verification special company by obtaining the TI-3 rating in the 2020 NICE TCB technology evaluation, and was able to complete the AI object recognition liquor unmanned vending machine. We have established a system to safely sell alcohol only to adults using facial recognition and telecommunication company authentication.
Q3. Future plans
CEO Park Jin-seok: City Sharing Platform has been selected as a smart super technology supplier by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups and will help change the culture of offline stores, including smart supermarkets, restaurants, and cafes, for the work-life balance of small business owners.
The government plans to expand 20,000 smart stores and more than 1,000 smart supermarkets nationwide this year. Since it has been selected as a supplier, vending machines for the city sharing platform will be installed across the country starting this month.
Over the past two years, we have been able to obtain a lot of feedback from the field through demonstration projects. Last May, the first 24-hour unmanned store opened at the Hyundai Knowledge Industry Center in Godeung-dong, Seongnam-si. Due to this, we would like to present a new non-face-to-face business start-up model that can be started in a small space of 4 to 5 pyeong.
Q4. Overseas market entry strategy
CEO Park Jin-seok: Currently, the first country we hope to enter is the United States, and we plan to prepare for expansion into the United States this year and begin in earnest in 2022. To this end, an MOU for partnership was signed with Microsys International, a local company in the United States. Through this, we are in constant contact with local companies in the United States regarding business direction, and are planning to establish a local corporation for future advancement.
In Korea, we are exploring ways to enter the U.S. market with Zinova Asia, and our first goal is to open Ice Go in Seattle, the hometown of Amazon. I want to compete with Amazon on Amazon’s home turf with a Korean-style unmanned store.
Q6. Reasons for settling in Pangyo
CEO Park Jin-seok: You can form partnerships with companies based in Pangyo and get many opportunities for exchange. In particular, if products from startups with unique ideas are sold at Ice Go, it is expected to create a good synergy effect.
In addition, Pangyo is home to companies with rapid changes in AI and ICT. Here, you can read industry trends and make quick decisions. We settled in Pangyo to establish collaborative relationships with other IT companies.
Source: Pangyo Techno Valley Official Newsroom
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