On Friday, April 18th, 2008, NIA hosted a meeting for ICU’s (Information and Communication University) IPPSO participants as they visited NIA with the intention of learning from NIA’s vast experience in the ICT industry. The meeting also served a second purpose as one of the participants from the group, Mr. Michael Debretsion (Director General of EICTDA) of Ethiopia was also at NIA to cement EICTDA and NIA’s commitment further by signing a MOU with President Chong-Kon Kim of NIA.




The delegation visiting NIA were made up of visitors from around the globe. Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Thailand, the Czech Republic, Ghana, Bulgaria, Moldova, Mongolia, Mozambique and Tunisia were all represented. After the visitors arrived on the 14th Floor, Dohyoon Kim lead the moderating activities and got the meeting going by turning it over to President Chong-Kon Kim with opening remarks. After an opening presentation introducing NIA activities, 2 short video clips were shown to the guests and another presentation on Korea’s BcN and u-Korea initiatives was given to the participants. The main bulk of the meeting was tied up in the question and answer where numerous quality questions and comments were given to the NIA panel.




Topics that were broached included: NIA’s role in BcN, how NIA funds projects and how collaboration projects are handled, who bears the burden of cost for Korea’s huge ICT public projects, etc… The Q&A discussion lasted for more than an hour with some interesting discussion between the visiting participants and NIA members. Both parties learned a lot and meaningful dialogue took place throughout the session.




The final part of the meeting was the actual signing of the MOU between NIA and EICTDA in Ethiopia. A relationship was first forged with Ethiopia from the middle of last year and this MOU signing in the area of e-Government interoperability signaled the next step in this ongoing friendly relationship between Korea and Ethiopia.