With the aim of strengthening national competitiveness through building a digital society, as well as to avoid the adverse effects of informatization and bridge the digital divide, the Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) plans to focusing on pursuing the projects associated with the IT 839 strategy currently underway During a regular briefing meeting held Feb. 24, Chin Dae-je, minister of the MIC said, "This year, the government will consolidate policies that it has pursued for the past two years and exerted every effort so that the IT industry can contribute significantly to achieving a per capita national income of $20,000." Saying that the year 2005 is significant in that it will act as a link that will connect the past two years of the 'Participatory Government' with its latter two years, Minister Chin added that the ministry will actively work toward the goal of building the nation into an IT powerhouse so that Korea can gain advanced-nation status. In order to meet this goal, the ministry intends to make speedy headway by actively pursuing pilot projects in such fields as BcN, RFID, IPv6, home networks, and Jeju telematics, all of which are included in the IT839 strategy. In the case of BcN, the ministry plans to set up a trial network in the first half of this year and provide demonstration services during the latter half of this year to a total of 1,350 homes in six regions including Seoul and other provincial cities such as Busan, Daejeon and Gwangju. In addition, the ministry plans to invest a total of 4 billion won to assist the adoption of new RFID technologies and provide cyber education and transmission services, including high-quality moving images, by utilizing locally developed products such as IPv6 routers. Moreover, the ministry plans to seek new services that can be provided by installing new technologies such as BcN and IPv6 to a total of 1,300 residences with home networks for the purpose of holding trial services while working to forge standards for participating companies. In the case of the telematics project currently underway in Jeju as a two-year project to be completed by the end of this year, tests are currently being conducted in order to provide stable service prior to its full launch this year. As part of this project, the ministry plans to supply additional terminals with enhanced capabilities for data transmission that utilize CDMA and wireless local area networks (LANs). In the meantime, the ministry said it plans to carry out in earnest measures established to strengthen national competitiveness through becoming a digitalized society. To meet this goal, the government plans to inject a total of 417 billion won this year to make renovations to the IT infrastructure and revitalize the sluggish economy. First of all, the ministry plans to actively pursue eight projects that include setting up a database and an integrated computer center for all ministries along with making improvements to the transportation and logistics systems. As part of a project to set up a national 'knowledge and information' database, the ministry said that 44 individual tasks were chosen early last month and the selection of bidders for these assignments will be decided in March. In this regard, Minister Chin explained that when various projects for the construction of the database begin in earnest, this would have the effect of creating some 13,000 jobs and have long-term, positive effects upon the efficiency of administrative work and providing quality service to the public. Moreover, the ministry has decided to execute a plan to build an integrated database this month for traffic information on major highways of up to 510 km in length. So far, traffic information has been scattered among government bodies. Furthermore, the ministry plans to make a breakthrough in providing services to the public by enhancing efficiency in the management of national information resources. As part of this goal, the ministry plans to launch a working team this month to set up a national computer center by integrating 47 existing computer centers scattered among various ministries. Along with this, the ministry plans to focus on preventing the negative effects of informatization, such as infringements on privacy and hacking, while bridging the digital divide for the construction of a safe and healthy digital society. The goal is to realize a safe and reliable 'ubiquitous Korea' along with the successful execution of 'IT839' strategy by preparing a mid- to long-term road map to protect information and beef up a 24-hour a day system to counter malicious practices that occur on the Web. To prevent the adverse effects of informatization, ministry will implement a system that necessitates receiving prior consent from the addressee before sending advertisements, i.e., spam mail, to mobile phones, impose heavy penalties on those who send spam illegally, and strengthen international cooperation to prevent cross-border spamming. As part of a project to bridge the digital divide, the ministry plans to offer by 2008 educational programs to some 5 million people who are too disadvantaged economically to benefit much from the digitalized society. For this year alone, the ministry and 11 other ministries including the Ministry of Education will jointly work on projects to solve the problem of the digital divide with a budget of 280 billion won. To begin with, the ministry this year plans to distribute teaching materials to low-income persons, including the handicapped and elderly, and provide IT education in total to some 870,000 people.