In a sense, Korea has the duty to mediate and take the lead in coordinating the interests of developing nations as well as more advanced nations. In particular, Korea will need to contribute to making a more content global community by sharing with the world what it does best.
The founding principle of Korea is "Hongik Ingan" (Korean character) which means, "benefit to all mankind working to make the world a better place." The flourishing IT environment of Korea is the perfect tool for the practice of such an ideology. Korea is striving to bring to fruition an "IT Benefit to All Mankind" for not only developing, but also developed nations, by sharing leading information technology, providing IT consulting, and supporting the training of skilled IT human resources. This is also in alignment with the principles of web 3.0, which emphasizes a creative spirit through benevolence and dissemination .
As such, the National Information Society Agency (NIA), which has been at the forefront of Koreas IT development policy and e-Government construction, is conducting a diverse array of international cooperation projects based on know-how which has been accumulated over the course of time when world class national IT systems were in development.
First, NIA provides technical assistance on IT development to developing countries in partnership with international organizations such as the UN, OECD, Worldbank, and other regional development banks. In 2010, economic feasibility analysis on government administrative network of Mozambique was jointly carried out with the African Development Bank. Also, working with the Asia Development Bank, NIA has provided its expertise in developing and applying an e-Government Maturity Model and ICT Project Guidebook in the Philippines and Vietnam.
Second, in order to strengthen cooperative relations with emerging economies, IT cooperation centers were established for joint projects and technical exchanges. The Centers are founded through a matching fund schema and operate for 3 year. Currently, there are two centers in operation - one in South Africa ('08-'10), and the other in Bulgaria ('10-'12) - discussions are ongoing to establish a third Center in Kuwait.
Third, the NIA has established Information Access Centers (IAC) in 22 developing nations with poor IT environment, and created an environment for network usage by providing IT equipment such as PCs and OA facilities. From 2002 to 2009, around 3 million residents in developing countries have used the Center's facility and received IT training. Recently, we have been expanding our support into diverse service areas such as remote learning systems (e-Learning, video conference) by linking the TEIN 3 Network (2.5 Gbps international research network), multi-culture family video reunion, and so forth.
Lastly, 3,444 ('10~'10) internet volunteers have been dispatched to 67 IT poor nations to support IT training and IT awareness raising campaigns. In addition, 2,897 public officers and experts in the IT field from 116 nations were invited to Korea to participate in IT expert training courses.
In this era, a paradigm shift from an industrial society to a knowledge information society has brought forth efforts from the NIA which will contribute to making the world into a "warm and caring digital world."
