On September 10th, 2012, ITU Secretary-General, Dr.Hamadoun I. Toure visited NIA and had a high level meeting with NIA President and fellow ITU-UNESCO Broadband Commissioner, Dr. Seang-Tae Kim. During the meeting, the Secretary-General also took time to address the Global Challenges and Smart E-Government Seminar, hosted by NIA.



He mentioned during the seminar that the number of smartphone users in Korea is now well over the 20 million mark - meaning that close to half of all Koreans are now connected to high-speed mobile. Dr. Toure stated that, “Broadband has already changed the lives of everyone here in South Korea, and with international cooperation, and through the work of international organizations such as ITU, I firmly believe that it will change the lives of everyone on the planet.” Dr. Tourewent on to add that he had plans for an ITU Discovery Museum to be set up in the ITU Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland that he hoped that NIA and the Korean private sector would get involved in for good positive publicity and promotion.



President Seang-Tae Kim stated during the meeting that he was proud to be one of the founding Broadband Commissioners from the very beginning when the Broadband Commission was set up with the support and backing of Secretary-General Dr. Toure in May 2010 and he looked forward to continuing his involvement in the worthwhile mission of the Commission in helping to reach all the MDG 2015. The meeting with NIA upper management was a precursor to other meetings that he held in Korea during his stay.



These other meetings included the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Chairman of the Korea Communications Commission, Mr. Kye-Cheol Lee, launching the preparatory process for the ITU 2014 Plenipotentiary Conference which will be held in the port city of Busan. At the MOU signing ceremony, he stated, “The ITU Plenipotentiary Conference is the ultimate decision-making body of the Union. It is fitting that the Republic of Korea, a world leader in ICT, will be host to this important global conference.”



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.