SEOUL, KOREA – At the monthly breakfast seminar for the Information Professional Association of Korea (IPAK), Dr. Ahn Moon-suk, professor emeritus of the Korea University addressed the importance of a smart e-Government in the era of social network services. This seminar took place, September 11, 2013 at the JW Marriot Hotel in Seoul.
This past June, President Park Geun-hye administration announced their plans to allow wider public access to government data to improve the transparency of state affairs and under this plan, “Government 3.0” plan was introduced.
Government 3.0 makes the government more transparent by offering more information to the public even before requests are made for disclosure. The Ministry of Security and Public Administration stated, if the information is not classified as a threat to national security or if the information is not protected for any privacy reasons, large amounts of information will be made accessible by the public.
The rapid advancement of IT sectors in the past decade has affected the operation levels of the government. With the dramatic increase in the rise of internet users and as Korea being one of the top countries in the IT sector, the emergence of e-Government was inevitable.
Dr. Ahn Moon-suk, professor emeritus/chair professor at the Korea University, speaking on the importance of smart e-goverment at JW Marrior Hotel Seoul.
Professor Ahn Moon-suk stated, “Scope of e-Government is dependent on Information Technology of the time.” In comparison to previous generations, government has more methods to relay information to the public and the speed of information transmission has also been significantly hastened.
Ahn during his lecture at the breakfast seminar focused on the developments of SNS and SMS usage in the public has affected the e-government.
Ahn stated, “SNS is changing the paradigm of e-government.” It is making the government more participatory, open and sharing with the public. Ahn further went on to state, “SMS is affecting Citizens’ Needs on the next e-government.” He emphasized the citizens’ need a change from the standardized government service to individually customized service and the need to change a uniform service to diverse service.
To accommodate these changes, Ahn expressed that ‘Smart Government’ that is intelligent, responsive and participatory is a necessity. He urged the government would need to have problem-solving capabilities, advanced preparations, diverse services, and open and transparent government systems.
Ahn further went to introduce two approaches to build the smart government.
Ahn, introduced a ‘prosumer (producer + consumer) approach’ first for in which users develop their own apps for receiving (government) services. Then he introduced the ‘citizen-centered development approach’ for in which citizens develop apps for their own purpose and share the app(s) with other users.
The problem of two approaches would be that programming language would be a prerequisite and the approach will be more suitable towards the younger generations of the population.
Consistently in his lecture, Ahn stated his view that the government needs to shift from government-to-citizen (G2C) state towards the government-for-citizens (G4C). However, he said the transition is difficult for many countries due to changes that are needed to be made in government polices and in technical skills.
Furthermore, Ahn went on to state that competition to develop a smart government has just begun for all countries and the chance of developing-countries to become winners is high. Ahn further went on to state, “Smart Government is inevitable and necessary stage in e-Government evolution process… If you do not participate in preparation of the next generation smart government, you will be loser.”
However, some people might be against the rise of the e-Government for couple reasons. Increased contact between the government and the public can bilateral. If the citizens are being forced to interact with the government it would potentially lead to a lack of privacy as government can collect more and more information on them. Furthermore, as the e-Government is maintained by the government themselves, the question of whether transparency is actually legit can be questioned.
Lee Chang-woo, chairman at the Business of Korea FTA Industry Association and Cho Sung-kap, Chairman of IPAK commemorating the signed agreement.
After the completion of the lecture, an agreement ceremony took place to improve the business competitiveness of the ICT sectors. Lee Chang-woo, chairman at the Business of Korea FTA Industry Association and Cho Sung-kap, Chairman of IPAK signed the agreements.
Four new members were also inducted into the IPAK community following the agreement ceremony.
Dr. Ahn Moon-suk is chairman at Presidential Special Committee of e-Government Korea, a chairman at Government Digital Convergence Committee of Broadcasting and Telecommunication, a co-chairman (with Prime Minister) at Government Regulation Reform Committee.
For further information on Information Professional Association of Korea (IPAK) and their activities in Korea, visit (http://ipak.or.kr/).