Frontier of digital technology and future strategy

Abstract

Digitalization has become the unavoidable trend all around the world. The digital future holds infinite possibilities. The obvious questions are who will win and who can survive in this fast-changing world, not only in devices but also in services and contents. Digital technology is the key locomotive that promotes the development of digital device, services and contents. The power of digital technology is getting stronger everyday in this digital era. For example, digital devices and services have merely been capable of responding to demanded requests. But now we are entering an era where the digital technology is capable of actively getting into our life, getting things done smoothly and silently. New forms of human-computer interface, such as wearable computers that are communicating with innumerable sensors deployed almost everywhere, will be common in the very near future. As ubiquitous computing evolves into an essential component of our daily lives, we need to address a variety of issues regarding social infrastructure, legal and political problems, etc. as well as technological capability. The world has witnessed Korea turning what sounded like science fiction into everyday life. Korea is the world leader in applying new digital technologies and creating added value from them. To seize this unique opportunity for Korea, technological and social consensus among government, industry, academia, and other social bodies are needed. What are our technological strategies in developing new value-creating opportunities? What should be the role of the government in responding to the emerging digital trends? I hope that EUC will provides new insights into these challenging questions. © IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2006.