The term 'smart' notably symbolizes solutions for major global tasks, such as improvement of energy efficiency, generation of growth engines, changes in working methods and enhancement of quality of life.
Oh Hae-seok, Special Advisor to the President of IT who is assisting President Lee Myung-bak in IT sector to establish a 'wealthy country, warm society, and strong nation, introduced the history of the IT industry to Korea and envisioned a future of the industry in a presentation under the subject of, 'Landmark of IT Korea and Smart Korea'.
In his presentation, Special Advisor Oh Hae-seok stressed that Korea has now grown as an IT power from the wreckage of the Korean War in the early 1950s. He said "The paradigm of Korea's IT policies has been incessantly evolving from cyber Korea to e-Korea, u-Korea, and eventually to 'smart Korea' in 2010. 'Smart Korea' will lead the world through the development of cutting-edge technologies such as smart cars, smart phones and smart robots."
Special Advisor Oh noted the drastic change in the world's IT industry over the past two decades citing that 9 Japanese electronics companies, such as Hitachi, Panasonic, Toshiba, NEC, Fujitsu, Sony, Sharp and Sanyo, were included in global top 10 IT companies in 1989, but they disappeared from the top 10 club in 2009 when Samsung Electronics entered the picture. Showing confidence in technological prowess and potential in mainstream IT industries, including semiconductors and mobile phones, he suggested the IT policy direction to continuously build up capability of maintaining an initiative in the IT convergence sector.
While building a wealthy country, warm society and strong nation through smart technologies, Korea will lead the world in smart industry, smart life and smart country by providing smart phones, smart cars, smart TVs and smart robots, he noted. He also suggested the goal of building a smart expo exhibition hall as a landmark of smart Korea.
As policy directions and key words bring to fruition the smart world, Special Advisor Oh Hae-seok presented four criteria - convergence, intelligence, open innovation and green. He introduced fast and efficient upgrades of the 'smart e-government' system by the government to improve the 'smart life' of people, and expected continued availability of IT convergences, such as smart homes, smart work, smart learning, and smart cars.
At the same time, he briefly mentioned the 'smart liver' program, a part of the project dedicated to renovating 4 major rivers in Korea.
"Leveraging the strength of semiconductors and mobile handsets, Korea needs to further develop software. Collaboration and symbiotic relations between large and small companies in software industry as well as collaboration between software and hardware businesses are essential for the development of smart industry," he stressed. "By 2015, Korea is expected to grow as one of the worlds top 5 IT convergence powers."
Special Advisor Oh also noted that the world government and business leaders as well as other participants in the G20 Seoul Summit will experience cutting-edge IT of Korea in downtown Seoul and that Korea will become the global exhibition site of smart systems in the years to come.
