Good Practices and Innovations in Public Governance 2003-2011

2008 Category 3: Republic of Korea
arena of communication has also provided a cyber space for the youth where they
can become panels of the Youth Forum, deepening their insights on governmental
policies. From the perspective of the SMG, the biggest benefit is to gain fresh and
extraordinary suggestions and ideas from the citizens. In other words, with active
participation from the people, public officials have been able to look at policy issues
from different perspectives.
In addition, the SMG has introduced another cyber space where citizens can suggest
their ideas and thoughts freely since October 2006. This innovative online meeting
room is named ‘Seoul Oasis-pour your imagination!’ Since the space has opened,
about 27 brand new ideas were suggested by participating citizens, and some of them
have been adopted as part of the city policies. On top of that, the government has
been reflecting the people’s ideas via another new mechanism titled omSeoul702,
which is the SMG’s online service that anyone can access on her/his mobile phones.
The ISPB of the Seoul Metropolitan Government has made an effort to narrow the
digital-divide by distributing secondhand desktop computers to the poor. But this
measure has not been very effective. Thus, more detailed measures were required in
collaboration with diverse private companies concerned so that recipients of those
computers could receive not only computers per se, but repair services and relevant
training. It is within this framework that the SMG initiated its brand new initiative
named ‘IT Seoul, we share hope.’
The first step the ISPB took was to open a bank account, an official account for those
who wished to donate money for distributing computers or for the internet access fees
for the poor. The next action was to organize an after-distribution service team in charge
of checking and repairing the computers distributed. Moreover, the ISPB has also made
use of Seoul administrative supporters, and volunteer college students, as well as citizens.
Active promotion is another activity that the ISPB has undertaken to maximize
the effect of the initiative. Apart from the official charity account for the initiative, the
ISPB launched an online charity that enabled Seoul citizens to donate points they have
accumulated by participating in various activities through the SMG’s website.
By the year of 2008, a total of 3,000 computers will be distributed to the disadvantaged
in partnership with private companies, including Samsung SDS, LG CNS and
Woori Bank. The membership of the SMG web-site has grown larger from 35,000 in
January 2004 to 93,000 as of January 2005. Therefore, people’s participation in the
Forum is expected to grow more along with the growing membership.
Lessons Learned
Despite SMG’s endeavours to promote the Forum, however, it did not appear to be an
easy task to make people active users of this program. Therefore, the most urgent
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