GANGWON-DO, KOREA – From August 23 – 25, the conference on Information Communication Facility 2012 was held under the themes “Giga Korea”, and “Green Transportation” by the Korea Institute of Information and Telecommunication Facilities Engineering (ITFE) in the Highone Hotel.
Throughout the conference, participants from universities, research centers and industries attended a total 13 sessions to present and discuss their academic and theoretical research findings. These findings mainly focused on ICT technology relevant to Giga Korea, wire-wireless network and platform, ICT convergence technology, IoT/M2M, future network, and smart public transportation.
Opening Speech
At the opening session, Sung-man Kim, senior executive vice president of the network group of KT, and general chair of the conference said, “In recent years, with ICT creating new values for business and brining substantial change in human life, global society is rapidly moving towards a future-oriented and knowledge-based smart society. The improvement of various information communication services, consequently, has resulted in the exponential growth of data traffic, drawing worldwide attention to the necessity of building new communication infrastructure.”
“In this context, the Korean government launched the “Giga-Korea project" which aims to provide Gbps broadband connections for individual users who can also enjoy holographic videos using their mobile handsets forty times faster than their current bandwidth can allow. This is designed as a national project for building the future information and communication infrastructure. On top of this, ICT is also expected to play a vital role in driving sustainable green growth through the convergence of ICT in energy and transportation areas. Green growth industry is set as a national growth engine to achieve economic growth along with environmental-friendly society. Battery electric vehicles being developed mainly led by Korea Aerospace University is a substantial step forward."
“With two main themes, “Giga-Korea” and “Green transportation”, I hope this conference will provide a real opportunity for very fruitful discussions and exchange of information for the specialists gathered here.”
Present state of IT and policy agenda
Following the opening speech, Seung-sik Na, director of Electronics & IT Policy Division at the Ministry of Knowledge Economy held special sessions on the topics of “Present state of IT and policy agenda”. “For the last 30 years, we have witnessed a paradigm shift of information technology from hardware-based in 1980s to software in 2000s, and now moving toward platform in 2010s. IT was previously separated from other sectors such as automobile, flight, medical care and energy. Now, it began to converge with them and in the near future is expected become a ubiquitous presence similar to the way in which electricity figures everywhere in our lives.”
For the role of government in setting IT policy, he said, “As industrialization began in the 1970s, the government’s role was of utmost importance for every sector. However, in this digital era where cloud computing, big data, and social media are shaping the IT market, the roles has been shifted from the government to the private sectors. The government will give companies more strength for them to lead the industry as well as set global trends and standards”
“Policy directions of the IT industry in 2012 include swift responses to changing environments in terms of globalization, spread of IT convergence in society at large, promotion of next generation hardware such as power semiconductors, LED, sensor and secondary batter, obtaining market leadership in 4G, Beyond 4G, smart and clouding computing, as well as fostering creative and convergence talents.”
Technology development and promotion of battery-electric bus
Another special session was presented by Won-gyu Kim, professor of Korea Aerospace University, on the topic of “Technology development and promotion of battery-electric bus”. “With technology currently available, it is too early to commercialize private electric cars in the market, and batteries are not capable of storing enough electricity for electric vehicles yet.”
“In this context, we initially started technology development limited to public electric buses. Unlike electric buses currently available in China, whose batteries are built in at the bottom, these batteries are located at the top which is safer than at the side or bottom because in case of fire, only top parts are burned. Buses will stop every 20km at battery replacement shelters, with robot system opening the slot at the top and automatically replacing them within 40 seconds. We successfully demonstrated battery replacement at the Technology Fair, and people did not perceive the replacement as there was no movement of the bus and they only sensed the soft bounce which people naturally feel as they get on and off. With successful launches of the electric-bus, we are aiming to next apply this green transportation system to taxis or trucks, gradually leading to the advent of private electric cars.”
The autumn conference on the governance system and policy agenda of the government
The autumn conference will take place regarding the topic of “Governance system and policy agenda of the government” this November, marking the 11th anniversary of the Korea Institute of Information & Telecommunication Facilities Engineering (ITFE). “The incumbent government’s IT policy has been under constant criticism and a subject of discussion. It is attributable to a continuous power struggle between the then Ministry of Information and Communication, or MIC, and three other relevant ministries over the last ten years, putting the market trends in convergence of media and communication on the back burner. This eventually led to the abolition of the MIC,” said Jae-soo Yang, professor of Dankook University, and executive chair of the conference.
He continued that, “The self-righteous attitude of MIC - taking full charge of information technology - and the then president’s considerable weight towards the ministry provoked jealousy from other ministries. As a result, voices from influential officials and politicians demanding the abolition of MIC rose from the current administration, leading to the breakup of MIC by heavyweights in the Transition Committee in the end.”
“Some people maintain that IT should not exist autonomously, but be melted into all ministries to support their work and services, while others claim that IT should be used as a means not ‘For IT’ but ‘By IT’ and ‘With IT’ for all industries. All of the IT sectors eventually find themselves being administered by four different ministries. Without timely policy suggestion and with excessive regulation, IT industry has been faltering, weakening its competitiveness. On top of this, as the science and technology sector is integrated into the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, it has been pushed aside by education policy. As a result, in order to produce an IT product or service, a company must complete an excessive number of processes and procedure documents, making efficient management difficult and weakening competitiveness.”
“Against this backdrop, the conference will offer a venue where specialists from the government, universities, and industry debate how the next government should assemble the scattered IT and science sectors. Discussion on SWOT analysis will also be held to identify favorable and unfavorable factors for the revival of MIC. The conference will include ICT policy presentation for ICT-based convergence technology and services, speeches from IT and science specialists such as lawmakers, government officials, colleges, and CEOs, as well as discussion regarding the next government’s IT and science organization and governance system. The conference results will be provided for lawmakers and presidential candidates to feed into policy making so as to create a society where an efficient government is set up and more competitive global companies are created,” Prof. Yang said.
