(C) Dr. Chul-soo Lee

Beyond Industrialization to an Information Society: The Birth and Vision of the National Basic Computer Network Project

Today, the Republic of Korea has established itself as a global informatization powerhouse, possessing world-class electronic government (e-government) and information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure. However, this achievement is by no means a product of mere coincidence. Based on the memoirs of Dr. Chul-soo Lee, who led the planning and practical operations of the National Basic Computer Network Project in the past, this newspaper will report in-depth over three parts on the history of the 1st Administrative Computer Network Project, which laid the groundwork for Korea's informatization in a 1980s environment that was akin to a wasteland. Part 1 covers the government's determination to foster the information industry and the background behind the birth of the National Basic Computer Network Project.

Major Transition in Economic Structure and the Will to Foster the Information Industry

The Republic of Korea achieved modernization of its industrial structure centered on heavy, chemical, and electronic industries through the 3rd and 4th Five-Year Economic Development Plans implemented in the 1970s. Thanks to rural development through the Saemaul (New Village) Movement and the construction industry's expansion into the Middle East, the nation achieved the splendid feat of reaching $10 billion in exports. However, by the early 1980s, the country faced a severe crisis, recording negative economic growth due to the global second oil shock coupled with domestic political upheaval. The Chun Doo-hwan administration of the Fifth Republic, which launched in 1981, had to seek a new paradigm to overcome this economic contraction, secure the legitimacy of the regime, and achieve a national leap forward.

Against this backdrop, the 5th Five-Year Economic and Social Development Plan was pushed forward starting in 1982. Unlike previous plans that focused solely on quantitative economic growth, the 5th plan aimed to promote a balance between economic and social development, thereby enhancing the stability and convenience of citizens' lives. This shift in policy tone served as an important turning point that led to the eventual end of the military regime and opened the era of civilian-led politics.

At the same time, the world was facing a grand transition into the "Third Wave"—the information society—as predicted by Alvin Toffler. Developed nations were vigorously pursuing national informatization at the government level, and technologically, the combination of computers and communications was advancing rapidly as digital technology fused with the telecommunications sector. As factory and office automation technologies were introduced to the field, dramatically improving productivity and work efficiency, the scale of the information industry expanded day by day. Domestic and foreign experts diagnosed that a nation's future destiny would be determined by how quickly it could transition into an information society.

The government actively embraced these international technological trends and economic system shifts. In March 1981, the government broke away from an industrial structure centered on home appliances and established the "Electronic Industry Promotion Plan," designating semiconductors, electronic switching systems, and computers as the three strategic items, and amended the Electronic Industry Promotion Act. Accordingly, the development project for the electronic switching system (TDX-1) commenced in 1982, which served as an opportunity to resolve the chronic backlog of telephone installations and fundamentally innovate the domestic telecommunications environment. This technological capability later became a successful asset that led Korean companies' expansion overseas, such as the establishment of a joint venture with Vietnam in 1993.

(C) Dr. Chul-soo Lee

Declaration of 1983 as the ‘Year of the Information Industry’ and Escalation of the Promotion Structure

The government's moves to foster the information industry gradually took concrete shape. In November 1982, at the 1st Expanded Meeting for Technology Promotion presided over by the President, Yong-teh Lee, CEO of DACOM (Data Communications Corporation of Korea), proposed declaring the "Year of the Information Industry" to fully nurture the information industry. This proposal was accepted, and the government declared the following year, 1983, as the "Year of the Information Industry," embarking on full-scale environment creation. It is said that President Chun Doo-hwan deeply recognized the importance of IT development and fostering specialized manpower through a private meeting with Dr. Yong-teh Lee at that time.

In March 1983, the Presidential Economic Secretariat recognized that the nurturing of the information industry was not being carried out systematically. It reported the "Information Industry Promotion Plan" to the President, which focused on fostering specialized manpower, expanding computer education, jointly utilizing computers, and public awareness campaigns. To promote this, the existing "Semiconductor Industry Promotion Committee" was expanded and reorganized into the "Information Industry Promotion Committee."

Initially, in the draft prepared by the working-level staff, the Science and Technology Secretary was to serve as the chairman, and directors-general from each ministry were to participate as committee members. However, considering the gravity of this project, President Chun Doo-hwan directed that the chairman be elevated to the Presidential Chief of Staff and the committee members to the vice-ministers of each ministry. This point demonstrates that the highest echelons of the Blue House recognized the information industry as a core task that would determine the nation's destiny.

In response to this strong government determination, investments from private companies followed. Samsung announced its plan to develop 64K DRAM through the "Tokyo Declaration" in 1982, and despite numerous concerns, achieved the splendid feat of succeeding in its development in just 10 months. Subsequently, with Hyundai Electronics establishing its Icheon semiconductor factory in 1984 and GoldStar entering the memory industry, semiconductors established a foothold to grow into South Korea's pivotal export product.

Establishment of the Master Plan for the 5 National Basic Computer Networks

In July 1983, the Presidential Economic and Scientific Secretariat reported the basic blueprint for the National Basic Computer Network to the President, which aimed to connect the entire nation's computerization system, centering on the defense network, information network, and administrative network. Accordingly, the Information Industry Promotion Committee embarked on gathering opinions from 230 public institutions and 70 experts. Since computerization at the time remained at a stage where individual institutions independently introduced and operated computers, quite a few experts expressed skepticism regarding a nation-level batch promotion plan and the massive scale of the project.

However, the government went through an extensive opinion-gathering process in setting an policy tone of such paramount national importance. Reflecting the dissenting opinions presented, the government finalized the "National Basic Computer Network Plan" in December of the same year, divided into five major networks: the Administrative Network, Financial Network, Education and Research Network, Defense Network, and Public Safety Network. This was the first groundbreaking milestone aimed at maximizing the investment effect of resources and comprehensively fostering the domestic information industry.

Introduction of the Designated Contractor System for Expertise and Responsible Management

One of the core features of the National Basic Computer Network Plan was the principle of "separation of users and manager/developers," a concept with few parallels worldwide. In the past, government agencies typically developed systems directly or placed one-time service orders with private companies. As a result, the boundaries between management and operation were ambiguous, and it was difficult to continuously accumulate technology. To overcome these limitations, the government introduced an unprecedented system where the government, as the user of the system, focused on the role of manager, while entrusting development and operations to a designated contractor with high-level expertise.

Based on this principle, DACOM, a digital communications business established in 1982, was designated as the exclusive contractor for the Administrative Network Project. Designating a telecommunications company as the exclusive contractor for an administrative computerization project drew strong backlash and suspicions from some institutions and academia at the time, including the Systems Engineering Research Center (headed by Ki-soo Sung). Another point of contention was requiring DACOM to construct the basic network through its own investment without any concrete measures for securing funds, even though a massive investment had to be accompanied within a short period. The conflict between academia and research institutes—particularly the opposing views between Director Ki-soo Sung and DACOM CEO Yong-teh Lee—was a matter of public gossip in the industry.

However, CEO Yong-teh Lee, who led DACOM at the time, was an individual with highly creative and positive thinking. Based on consultations with domestic and foreign experts, he demonstrated outstanding capability in creating new businesses and proposing national policies. He excluded private interests through a strict separation of public and private affairs, and recruited a large number of young and talented individuals from academia and research institutes to ensure the success of the domestic host computer development and the Olympic computer network project. Furthermore, he was an astute manager who increased the organization's external credibility by boldly delegating authority to project managers and ensuring consistency. Trusting DACOM's expertise and planning capabilities, the government made the final decision to grant full authority over the Administrative Network Project to DACOM.

National Informatization Strategy and the Declaration of Domestic Host Computer Development

In January 1984, the Ministry of General Affairs, which was designated as the general coordinating agency for the Administrative Computer Network, prepared and reported a concrete action plan. Accordingly, in June 1984, the Committee for the Coordination of the National Basic Computer Network was launched, and the five basic strategies for national computerization were confirmed.

The 5 Basic Strategies for the National Basic Computer Network

Balanced Development of Public and Private Sectors: The public sector preferentially builds the five major public computer networks, while the private sector supports corporate automation through the opening of the VAN market and tax benefits, and conducts nationwide computer education through the large-scale distribution of terminals.
User-Centered Computerization: Breaking away from a management system centered on a small number of experts, the system is optimized so that general users can process work easily and conveniently.
Linking Public Expenditure with Industry Nurturing: Public computerization investment is used as a primer to nurture the domestic hardware and software industries, and an independent "Information Superhighway" connecting the entire nation is constructed.
Independent Development of Host Computers: To escape dependence on foreign computers, a medium-sized domestic host computer will be developed and used as the standard for unit systems to achieve technological independence.
Guaranteeing Autonomy and Complete Competition: Complete competition in domestic and foreign markets is guaranteed except for minimum national standards to induce continuous technological advancement.
In particular, the plan to develop a medium-sized domestic host computer to secure independent technology was a core task to protect national informational sovereignty. At a time when foreign computers such as IBM, UNIVAC, and DEC monopolized the host computer market in government and academia, the government secured source technology through a technical alliance with the U.S. company Tolerant and commenced the development of a Korean-style host computer. This was a decisive resolve to prevent South Korea's information and communication technology from becoming dependent on specific countries or overseas corporations.

(C) Dr. Chul-soo Lee

Education for High-Ranking Officials and Innovation of the Document Reporting System
The Administrative Computer Network Project, which entailed a national transformation, did not always progress smoothly. Resistance from public servants who wished to adhere to existing methods and all-out lobbying by foreign computer companies were major obstacles to the project's advancement. To break through this head-on, working-level leaders such as Secretary Sung-won Hong of the Blue House Economic and Scientific Secretariat, Hong-shik Jeong, and Ok-hwan Song devoted their full efforts to coordinating differences between ministries and persuading opposing forces.

The driving force behind the government's strong push was the leadership by example shown by the highest-ranking officials. High-ranking public servants, including the Prime Minister, ministers and vice-ministers of executive branches, and the Presidential Chief of Staff, attended practical computer training held every morning from 7:00 AM to 8:00 AM for a week, learning the technology while asking questions to instructors.

In addition, at that time, it was customary across all government ministries to utilize large, multi-colored charts handmade by specialized chart personnel during important briefings. While this had a high visual effect, it caused inefficiency, wasting excessive time and manpower on document preparation.

Accordingly, the Blue House Economic and Scientific Secretariat proposed introducing a Korean word processor software developed by a domestic venture company to computerize all document reporting, despite the crude initial technical level and limitations in Chinese character support. President Chun Doo-hwan completely accepted this proposal despite temporary operational inconveniences. As a result, handmade charts disappeared from all ministries, and a grand transformation in administrative work occurred as the computerized document reporting system took root.

Establishment of Legal Foundation and the Full-Scale Launch of the 1st Project
The government, which confirmed the importance of information and communication systems through an inspection of the 1984 LA Olympics, successfully developed and operated the computer systems for the "1986 Asian Games" and the "1988 Seoul Olympics" on its own, thereby verifying its technological capabilities both internally and externally. In particular, as the comprehensive information network system led by DACOM received reviews stating it was superior to the system used at the LA Olympics, the Administrative Computer Network Project gained further momentum.

Subsequently, in May 1986, the "Act on the Promotion of the Dissemination, Extension, and Utilization of Computer Networks (hereinafter referred to as the Computer Network Act)"—the Republic of Korea's first informatization-related law that unified administrative computerization and procurement regulations—was enacted and entered into force as of January 1, 1987. With the enactment of this law, computerization projects that had been independently carried out by individual ministries using their own budgets began to be integrated and coordinated at the national level.

Furthermore, in accordance with the law, the Computer Network Coordination Committee and the National Computerization Agency (NCA), a specialized technical support institution, were established. The NCA reviewed and coordinated computerization plans for each ministry and presented standardization guidelines, making a pivotal contribution to enabling South Korea to establish a system for joint data utilization and system interconnection faster than other developed nations.

In December 1988, the master plan for the 5 major computer networks, including the administrative network, and an 8-sector support plan—which encompassed host computer development, multi-functional office equipment distribution, and the development of a Korean-style operating system—were finalized. The curtain rose in earnest on the 1st National Basic Computer Network Project (1987–1991), keeping pace with the 6th Five-Year Economic Development Plan.

This was a time when security and standardization technologies to bind large-scale, real-time administrative data closely linked to citizens' lives—such as resident registration, real estate, and vehicle management—into a single network were non-existent. However, numerous engineers and public officials who participated in the project put aside their personal lives and dedicated themselves to research and development day and night with a single "can-do" challenging spirit. The sweat they shed became a solid foundation that allowed the Republic of Korea to later achieve the feat of ranking 1st in the world in e-government.

(To be continued in Part 2)