As a former minister of science and technology, who played a major role in fostering the development of the IT industry in South Korea, and the current head of the e-trade promotion committee at the Korean International Trade Association (KITA), Seo Jung Uck is preeminently qualified to explain the industry's remarkable achievements in his country. He also has a knack for making the explanation easy to understand: "To change your community, you have to abruptly change your way of thinking." Addressing a luncheon forum audience at The Korea Society, Seo illustrated his point by relaying his experiences in the 1980s when he was part of a team charged with expanding South Korea's telephone network. He and his colleagues at that time were confronted with a momentous choice. Should they start building the network from big cities out into the countryside, or start building from rural areas and work inwards? The conventional approach was to start from big cities, but a decision was made to start instead from the countryside. Due to the structured, comprehensive phone network that had been laid down in the 1980s, some years later it was feasible to build fiber optic networks on top of the system with relatively little effort. Then, in the 1990s, Seo became involved in creating South Korea's mobile phone network. In this case, the choice was between going with the widely-used GSM cellular standard or using the superior, but unproven, CDMA technology. Again, a decision was made to take a gamble and build the mobile infrastructure around CDMA. As a result, companies like Samsung were able to build their products around this more advanced technology and to take the lead in the world market. Seo's point in relaying these critical gambles was that innovative planning was every bit as important as sophisticated engineering to the successful development of South Korea's tech sector.

with

Seo Jung Uck
Head, e-trade Promotion Committee, Korean International Trade Association (KITA)
Former Minister of Science and Technology

Friday, June 24, 2005