Events

Harnessing Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence in Korea: Reshaping the Digital Future in a Post-COVID era

January 26, 2022

Virtual

MULTIMEDIA

OVERVIEW
AGENDA
SPEAKERS

Artificial intelligence (AI) spurs innovation across all sectors of the economy and society. Advanced countries and leading tech companies are continuously expanding their investments to get the upper hand in AI technology. Governments are increasingly using AI to design better policies and make better decisions, improve communication and engagement with citizens and residents, and enhance the speed and quality of public services. While creating opportunities, AI also poses risks associated with data security, privacy, transparency, safety, and data bias. How can countries mitigate these risks?
The Republic of Korea, a country with deep experience in the technology field, has been promoting “trustworthy AI” that enhances the benefits of the technology and addresses its risk factors. The country announced its National Strategy for AI in 2019 and made AI a key element of its Digital New Deal initiative. Join the webinar to hear about Korea's current practices and challenges when implementing and harnessing trustworthy AI in the public and private sectors. It will shed light on the following questions:
What enabling policy and regulatory framework is leveraged to govern and support the adoption and use of trustworthy AI in Korea?
How is the Korean government optimizing data flows among public agencies through the appropriate data infrastructure and public platforms to harness data and AI?
How is Korea fostering an effective AI ecosystem to create opportunities by enabling relevant education, industry, and the private sector to address the country's strategic priorities in advancing the data economy?
What efforts in Korea are promoting the adoption and use of trustworthy AI as part of the country's digital cooperation agenda?
And finally, are these practices relevant for other countries looking to invest in trustworthy AI for a safer and more inclusive data economy?
The World Bank Group Korea Office and the World Bank Digital Development Global Practice are hosting this webinar series on harnessing technologies for helping countries accelerate their digital transformation and advance towards data economy.

TIME (KST)

AGENDA

9:30 – 9:40

(10 min)

Openings

Je Myung Ryu, General Director, AI Policy Bureau, Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT)

Nicole Klingen, Acting Director, Digital Development Global Practice, World Bank

9:40 – 10:25

(45 min)

Keynotes

Ahram Moon, Research Fellow, Digital Economy & Society Research Division, Korea Information Society Development Institute

Topic: Korea’s National AI Strategy – National Commitment towards building trustworthy AI ecosystem with review of policy and regulatory framework

Yoon-seok KO, Vice President, Data Department, National Information Society Agency (NIA)

Topic: AI infrastructure, adoption and use cases within the government, and how regulations are managing risks to enhance trustworthy AI

Alice Oh, Director, Institute for Artificial Intelligence, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)

Topic: Korea’s strategic priority in AI applications and value creation within an effective AI ecosystem in industries

10:25 – 10:45

(20 min)

Discussion

Moderator: Mark Williams, Practice Manager, Global Knowledge and EAP region, World Bank

David Satola, Lead Counsel, LEG, World Bank

Andrew D. Mason, Deputy Chief Economist, East Asia Pacific, World Bank

10:45 – 10:55

(10 min)

Q & A

10:55 – 11:00

(5 min)

Concluding Remarks

Jason Michael Allford, Special Representative, World Bank Group Korea Office

Je Myung Ryu

General Director, AI Policy Bureau, Ministry of Science and ICT
Je Myung Ryu is a Director General of AI Policy Breau at the Korean Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT). Je Myung previously served as Director General of Radio Policy Bureau at the Ministry, where he oversaw the June 2018 5G spectrum auction, digital switchover, and general spectrum management. He also served as Director of Telecommunications Service Policy Division and Software policy division. During his over 20-year-long career in the Korean Government, Je Myung acquired wide-ranging expertise in the field of ICT policy by working at the Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC), the Korea Communications Commission (KCC), the President’s Office, and the MSIT. Je Myung also played an active role in international affairs. He had worked as Senior Digital Development Specialist at the Digital Development Global Practice of the World Bank, Counsellor at the Permanent Delegation of Korea to OECD in Paris and as a bureau member of OECD Working Party on Indicators for the Information Society and the Working Party on Communications Infrastructure and Services Policy. Je Myung earned a Master’s Degree in information systems management from Carnegie Mellon University and a B.A. in Politics from Seoul National University.

Nicole Klingen

Acting Director, Digital Development Global Practice, World Bank
Ms. Nicole Klingen is the Acting Director and Practice Manager for Digital Development in Europe and Central Asia in the Infrastructure Practice Group of the World Bank. She heads a global team working on building digital economies in developing countries to drive shared prosperity and reduce poverty. An economist with more than 24 years of technical, managerial, and partnership experience at the World Bank, Ms. Klingen was most recently overseeing the country portfolios for Ethiopia, South Sudan, and Sudan. In this role, she authored the Country Partnership Framework for Ethiopia. Ms. Klingen also served as Practice Manager in the health sector, where she managed a team of health specialists and economists in the World Bank's global health, nutrition, and population unit with a focus on delivering results for countries. Ms. Klingen also co-led the development of the World Bank Group's 2007 Strategy for Health, Nutrition, and Population Results. Nicole holds a master’s degree in economics and business. She speaks English, French, German, some Spanish, and some Italian.

Mark Williams

Practice Manager, Global Knowledge and EAP Region, World Bank
Mark Williams is Practice Manager for Global Knowledge and Expertise in the Digital Development Global Practice. He is an economist with over 20 years of experience in the economics, regulation, and strategy of the digital sector, covering a range of specialist areas including strategy, policy, regulation, financial analysis corporate restructuring, and litigation. He has worked in some of the world’s leading economic consulting firms - NERA, Frontier Economics, Deloitte, and Berkeley Research Group (BRG). Previously in his career, he spent six years as an economist in the World Bank’s Global ICT team focusing on analytical work and operations in the Middle East and Africa.

Ahram Moon

Associate Fellow Researcher, Digital Economy & Society Research Division, Korea Information Society Development Institute
Ahram Moon is an associate fellow researcher at the Korea Information Society Development Institute (KISDI). She has been studying social issues and policies related to information communication technology and telecommunication market competition in Korea since she joined KISDI. She has been engaged in government projects about ethical Artificial Intelligence and researches on the evidence-based policy of intelligent information society, such as building the panel data of intelligent information users. She currently focuses on research about trustworthy AI, labor market in the intelligent information society, and policies for users in the algorithmic society based on scientific evidence and data. She received her Ph.D. in Economics at the University of Southern California in 2016.

Yoon-seok Ko

Vice President, Data Department, National Information Society Agency
Yoon-seok Ko is Vice President at National Information Society Agency (NIA), and he has been working for NIA since 2003. Yoon-seok majored in Computer Science for undergraduate at the University of Georgia in the U.S. and got M.S. in Information Systems at Yonsei University in Korea. His specialty is e-government, ICT convergence, and data. Yoon-seok has planned and managed nationwide e-government projects such as the Government Business Management System Project and Government Information Data Center Project. He has also worked at PCGID (Presidential Committee on Government Innovation & Decentralization) to oversee presidential agenda, especially e-government projects. Yoon-seok also worked as a director of the Convergence Planning Team at NIA from 2013 to 2019. He has developed a nationwide ICT convergence plan, known as “The Vitamin Project,” which is one of the key projects in Park’s administration. Currently, he has been in charge of “The Digital Government Innovation Project,” which plans to innovate not only the government itself but also society. Most of the sub-projects are based on AI technology by using big data. Recently, he has worked as a vice president and in charge of the Department of data. As a part of the Korean New Deal, the Korean government launched the Digital New Deal in 2020, and the “AI Open Data Project” is #1 project for the Digital New Deal.

Alice H. Oh

Director, Institute for Artificial Intelligence, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
Alice Oh is a professor at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in the School of Computing with a joint appointment in the Graduate School of AI. She is also serving as Director of the Institute for Artificial Intelligence. Alice’s research interests are developing and applying machine learning models for natural language processing. She has worked on publications including ‘Mitigating Language-Dependent Ethnic Bias in BERT’ in 2021, ‘Learning Bill Similarity with Annotated and Augmented Corpora of Bills’ in 2021, and many more. Alice holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), M.S in Language and Information Technologies from Carnegie Mellon University, and S.B. in Mathematics from MIT.

David Satola

Lead Counsel, LEG, World Bank
David Satola is Lead Counsel, LEG, and he provides legal advisory services on a range of technology and law-related issues both internally to the World Bank and externally to its member states. His work spans more than 85 countries and focuses on transactional and regulatory matters related to communications infrastructure, services and applications, cyber-security and cybercrime, electronic commerce and online authentication, digital identification, software licensing, data protection, and access to information. David has a BA and an MA from Johns Hopkins University, a JD from the University of Wisconsin, and has also studied at the London School of Economics and the Hague Academy of International Law.

Andrew D. Mason

Deputy Chief Economist, East Asia Pacific, World Bank
Andrew D. Mason is Lead Economist for the East Asia and Pacific Region of the World Bank. He has carried out policy research on a range of issues, including innovation, COVID-19, labor, skills, social protection, and gender equality. Mr. Mason is coauthor of several World Bank flagship reports, including The Innovation Imperative for Developing East Asia; A Resurgent East Asia: Navigating a Changing World; Toward Gender Equality in East Asia and the Pacific; and Informality: and Exit and Exclusion; as well as the World Bank Policy Research Report, Engendering Development: Through Gender Equality in Rights, Resources, and Voice. He is also a regular contributor to World Bank’s semiannual, East Asia and Pacific Economic Update. Mr. Mason has been an affiliated professor at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute of Georgetown University. He holds a doctorate in applied economics from Stanford University and a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard University.

Jason M. Allford

Special Representative, World Bank Korea Office
Jason Allford is the Special Representative of World Bank Group's Korea Office. In this role, Mr. Allford oversees the office as a global hub on innovation and technology for sustainable development, bringing lessons from Korea's development experience – particularly in relation to innovation, technology, and green growth – and applying them to the World Bank's operational work in other World Bank member countries. An Australian national, Mr. Allford joined the Australian government in 1994, focusing on macroeconomic analysis, forecasting, and fiscal policy. He previously worked at the World Bank Group from 2014 to 2018, representing 15 countries from Asia and the Pacific, including Korea, at the Bank's Board of Executive Directors. He has also worked as an adviser on fiscal policy to governments in Africa, East Asia Pacific, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. Mr. Allford holds a Master's degree in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a Bachelor's degree in Economics from the University of Tasmania.