On September 10th, a delegation from Singapore’s IDA visited Korea and held discussions with NIA’s upper management on e-government and ICT and strategy for further cooperation.



IDA -Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore has an aim of growing Singapore into a dynamic global information and communication hub leveraging Singapore’s economic and social development. It also seeks opportunities to grow local ICT companies by facilitating their access into the global market place. As the Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the Singapore Government, IDA is responsible for master planning, project-managing and implementing various ICT systems and capabilities for the Government. It oversees IT standards, policies, guidelines and procedures for the Government, and manages ICT security of critical ICT infrastructure.



Heading IDA’s delegation was James Kang, Assistant Chief Executive and from NIA, Kwang-Taek Ryu, Executive Director led the proceedings for the meeting. NIA gave some presentations on both Smart Government and Mobile Government and after, IDA gave a presentation on their activities including e-government, standards and m-government initiatives currently taking place in Singapore at this time.



Discussions after the presentations delved into topics like security, e-government applications for citizens as well as m-government services uptake due to an increase in mobile (smart) phone penetration in both countries.



The final topic of conversation was on the current ongoing trend of cloud computing where is it is being utilized at Korea’s Government Integrated Data Center (NCIA) as well as a public cloud being utilized in Singapore’s education sector.



Since NIA and IDA cover some of the same areas in their respective countries, discussions were very worthwhile so as to learn from each other for very similar country situations and ICT environment.