The ‘Forum on ICT Industrial Policy Direction’ was held by the ICT Industry Committee on September 25th at Press Center in Seoul. ICT experts from academic and industrial sectors gathered to discuss what direction the next government should move towards in order to boost the ICT industry, which is said to be neglected in the absence of the Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) within the current government.
The forum started with a presentation by Hak-soo Kim, Professor at the College of Communication at Sogang University under the topic of “Where should ICT go” During this presentation he emphasized the collective problem solving in the digital era. “The power of the collective public is greater than aggregate and issue public. Aggregate public refers to simply gathered individuals without a specific purpose and issue, while public is those who gather to choose one or the other such as during elections, which naturally leads sides to be divisive. However, the collective public is people who gather for collective problems. They can become united by common issues, say, weather, financial crisis or Olympics. Although there is no single body to govern, they can be integrated and also gain trust, justice and solidarity in the process of solving problems together. In this digital age where group consciousness has been removed and individual voices are raised more often, it is time to ponder how to develop new community spirit through collective problem solving.”
Next, Jeong Ho Kwak, Research fellow at Korea Information Communication Industry Institute, made a speech on ‘Policy direction caused by ICT environment and paradigm changes’. “As we are now moving from an industrial society toward creative society with the advancement of ICT, we should ponder on the institutional and social aspects as well. Now, we have reached the level where mobile phones are capable of checking blood and cars can run without drivers. However, it doesn’t seem that they are institutionally feasible yet, and the policy and institutions should be able to work at the fast pace of technology. From a social aspect as well, while we are now living in the connected city where we are able to work from home with the help of ICT, social convention doesn’t seem to allow for this working condition yet.”
In a panel discussion, Jong-bae Ahn, Professor of Hansei Universtiy said that ICT platform heralded the new convergence era integrating every sector – smart media, smart contents, smart education, smart city, smart medical care, and so on. This requires a change of ideas beyond the current ICT. The next government should develop a new ecosystem for ICT which is a basis for all industries.
Jae-soo Yang, Professor of Dankook University said that we should not follow, but learn from the past mistakes of the former MIC. “With a lot of merges between departments within the MIC, the ministry had an increasingly mixed HR system leading the industry to become less specialized.” He continued that “Since the abolition of the MIC, ICT has now received less attention from the government, and the relevant ministries are more neglectful of the sector. Thus, in the next government, the ministry exclusively responsible for ICT should be set up to make the sector more competitive. For the ICT issues which overlap with other ministries, ‘cooperation system between ministries’ should be set up to minimize problems and increase efficiency.”
