On the 3rd of December, President Lee announced his vision of an information-oriented Korea in a speech at the Central Government Complex. Lee reported a basic scheme to make Korea an information-oriented country. About 200 people were present for the announcement, and among the attendees were the Chief of the Standing Committee at the National Assembly, General Officers and Vice Ministers of major ministries and offices, citizen participants who applied through the internet, businesspeople and academic professionals.
Lee put a premium on this scheme because it did not follow existing methods to promote informatization but included the views of many private experts. Lee said: "Our main task is to overcome the point at issue, our economic crisis. However, we also have to prepare for our future. Therefore, our full-scale promotion of informatization is valuable as a new growth engine for the future of Korea." Lee also emphasized that national informatization is an essential foundation to manage the nation and a good way to actualize a national vision early. Moreover, Lee requested that all the participants make concrete preliminary plans and to prepare for the future step by step along with a new organization belonging to the President, the Informatization Promotion Committee.
Lee highlighted that the informatization that Korea pursues has to con tribute not only to the increased efficiency of various fields but also to people's happiness. Lee pointed out that the previous administration dumped over 3.4 trillion won into informatization schemes, but failed to create something useful since the whole budget was not well organized. Then, Lee spoke with experienced people on the ground to get some expert advice on how to make practical use of the budget to create something effective.
Lee also pointed out that even though the informatization of Korea ranks 6th in the world, the opinion of the Korean people would be lower than that ranking. Lee demanded a complete informatization system that as many people as possible can make suggestions about. In an effort to follow the direction of President Lee, this event included people who were interested in the Internet. Participants from all levels of society showed exuberant interest by asking a lot of questions about the direction of the new informatization promotion.
This basic scheme of informatization is meaningful in the sense that it has changed the direction of policy from discontinuation and distraction to communication and convergence, from facilitation-oriented to application-oriented. In addition, it has a historical meaning in terms of suggesting a new strategy like an active response to the reverse function of informatization, and reinforcement of governance between the private and governmental sectors.
The vision of national informatization is confirmed to be leading an IT society based on creation and trust. It is a will to make Korea a wealthy country utilizing cutting edge ICT and knowledge creatively and productively. Also, its goal is to create a safe and mature IT culture through trustworthy informatization and eventually, to contribute to the realization of making Korea a leading first class country.
To realize this vision, the basic scheme includes 5 purposes, 20 agendas, and 72 tasks. The 5 purposes consist of 2 engines and 3 goals. The 2 engines are creative software power and cutting-edge digital convergence infrastructure. In the field of creative software power, they are planning to create a national knowledge creation and application system and use it as a new growth engine. Also, in cutting-edge digital convergence infrastructure, they have a scheme to make the national core infrastructure more sophisticated through IT. The three purpose spheres consist of a trustable information-oriented society, a diligent government based on knowledge, and a wealthy population with digital technology.
In a trustworthy information-oriented society, the goal is to build full trust, especially relating to disasters, accidents, and food safety as well as cyberspace. For this, the government will enlarge its identification system creating more secure ID numbers which use an I-PIN and make more thorough privacy protection measures.
To become a diligent government based on knowledge, the government will increase the efficiency of govern mental tasks through unification and connection of information systems and improve the quality of public services. A preconceived plan is to unify more than 30% of computation resources and homepages. From now on, administrative information will also be available to banks, it will minimize the submission of civil affair documents and supply one-stop civil services to solve bureaucratic inconveniences at their root.
To generate a wealthy population with digital technology, the government is planning to utilize IT technology creatively and productively to invigorate the economy. The essentials are to create a value added industry by converging the existing one and ICT, to increase green ICT for low carbon and green growth, and to expand public purchases of superior domestic hardware and software. If this basic scheme is promoted successfully through the cooperation of all fields, people will be lead more fulfilling lives with ubiquitous services. The Internet will become a trustworthy place and the population will be more guarded from unsanitary foodstuffs, disasters, and accidents. In addition, we will be able to raise energy in the national economy by creating new value from ICT and new growth engines.
General Officer of the Ministry of Public Administration and Security Won Sei-hoon said: "We will establish detailed preliminary plans by February and announce them in March cooperating closely with related experts. And the National Informatization Strategy Committee will mainly manage them from now on."
As a part of the government's effort, there was a National informatization policy forum at an international conference hall in an annex of the Central Government Complex. In this forum, there were many opinions claiming that reestablishment of the promotion system and the deep interest of the President is really needed to realize a leading IT society based on creation and trust.
More than 180 people participated in this policy forum, including Lim Woo-jin, Section Chief of the Information Strategy Office in the Ministry of Public Administration and Security, and many experts in related businesses, government offices, and academies. As participants in discussion panels there were also a lot of professors.
