Contents - Connect-World

National Development
Implementing policy to bridge Koreas digital divide
by Dr Yeon-Gi Son, President/CEO, Korea Agency for Digital Opportunity & Promotion
Korea is an information society leader; it has the highest broadband Internet penetration
in the world. The Korean Government has developed a stream of policies over the years
aimed at reducing the digital divide and promoting the digital inclusion of Korean society
as a whole—young and old, handicapped, city dwellers or rural inhabitants. The government
provides all these with subsidised or free equipment and Internet access. Now
its focus is shifting towards promoting the more effective use of IT.
Dr Yeon-Gi Son is the President and CEO of the Korean Agency for Digital Opportunity and Promotion
(KADO), Korea. KADO is a public organisation charged with bridging the digital divide, ensuring free
access to information and communications throughout Korean society. Before joining KADO, Dr Son
was President and CEO of the Information Culture Centre of Korea. At present, Dr Son is a member of
the Korean National Commission for UNESCO and of the Advisory Committee for Policy of the Ministry
of Government Administration and Home Affairs. Dr Son was awarded the Presidential Award in 2000
and the order of Cambodian National Merit in 2003. Dr Son earned a PhD and Masters in Sociology
from Texas A&M University, a Bachelor of Science from Utah State University and a Bachelor of Arts
from Korea University, Seoul.
Society and the digital divide
Korea holds track records to prove its
status as an information society. In
2003, Koreas IT industry generated
15.6 per cent of the countrys GDP,
while IT exports accounted for 30 per
cent of total exports. Korea is the
world’s most wired society. It has the
highest broadband penetration rate in
the world.
As of June 2004, there were 11.61 million
subscribers to broadband
Internet access. Internet adoption
rates surged from 1.9 million in 1997
to 29 million in end 2003—65 per cent
of the population. Korea established a
one-stop e-government online service
centre at www.egov.go.kr, which provides
guides for 4,000 categories of
civil services and 393 categories of
civil requests.
E-government services handle such
matters as resident certificates, real
estate, automobiles, tax and corporate
document matters — or about 70 per
cent of all of the governments civil
services. Korean e-commerce surged
from 50 billion won in 1998 to 177 trillion
won in 2002 [symbol — KRW;
US$1 equals approximately1065
KRW]; this corresponds to 12 per cent
of the countrys total transactions.
Despite the progress, however, Korea
is challenged by its digital divide. The
divide threatens to reduce the return
on the nation’s investment in information
and to undermine its social unity
as well, becoming a burden on society.
In the information society, ’knowledge’
and ’information’ are resources
that generate wealth and are instrumental
in every social activity.
Accordingly, the governments policy
emphasises efforts to bridge the
divide.
Almost 35 per cent of Koreas population,
about 13 million people, remains
out of the information loop. A significant
part of this group consists of the
handicapped, senior citizens, residents
living in agrarian and fishery villages
and low-income people.
Meanwhile, Korea will soon have 30
million of Internet users and is in the
process of moving from the ’Internet
1-Generation’ to the ’Internet 2-
Generation’. In the Internet 1-
Generation, the major issue was the
’Internet literacy’, so the policy focus
was upon educating people to access
the Internet. In the Internet 2-
Generation, its key issue is usually
how people can make the most of the
Internet in their daily lives.
Accordingly, an important national
task for the government is to reduce
the gap, among the 65 per cent of
Koreas population that uses the
Internet, between those who use the
computer and the Internet productively
and those who simply use it as
consumers.
Concerning the digital divide
As the general level of access to and
use of information increases, there is a
trend towards further widening the
digital divide. The profession or gen-
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