[In-Depth Look] The Power of New Technology Unleashed

Dongchul Kim, Ph.D. in Engineering · Advisor at Bespin Global

At the early stage of the COVID-19 outbreak, the number of confirmed cases was around 300, and a situation exceeding thousands was considered close to a disaster. However, now that we are experiencing over 3,000 confirmed cases, it is said that maintaining the number below 1,000 can allow a return to normal life. Of course, there has been a change in securing vaccination rates, but the contrasting impressions given by the same numbers can cause confusion among the public. Alternatively, people may have become tired of such news and reached a stage where they no longer think about it.

Last summer, the enthusiasm for supplying vaccines was intense. Securing vaccines was a test of diplomatic and economic power, and transportation and storage required advanced technology. In the actual vaccination process, deciding who to vaccinate and how was also a challenge. The government planned to create a system where citizens could make reservations and vaccinate sequentially according to urgency, but it did not proceed as intended. Ultimately, it became a national catastrophe. It became a painful case that made people doubt Korea’s IT level and became news worldwide. The COVID-19 vaccine reservation system caused frustration among already struggling citizens due to system crashes, data loss from resets, and connection failures.

The government invested budget and personnel to build its own cloud, but it was not used in the actual national disaster situation. The COVID-19 reservation system was not cloud-based, and there were insufficient measures to respond to problems. Another issue arose that required fixing everything from computer resources to citizen touchpoints in a short period. Eventually, private experts were brought in to diagnose the situation, and a private public cloud was partially introduced to solve the problem. Perhaps concerns about public cloud security acted as a psychological barrier in government policy decisions. However, using new technologies like cloud computing has become a necessity for successful projects, not a choice. Taking this opportunity, it is hoped that close and organic exchanges between public and private sectors will be activated so that everyone can benefit appropriately from the newly introduced technologies.

Dean Heath, a leadership program expert, repeatedly makes strong comments in his book Upstream (2020), as if pointing to our case: "Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets." Once the current problems are recognized, it is desirable to trace back upstream in the process to solve the root cause. What if a cloud is built but not used? Where is the upstream of this problem? The government should reflect on whether its cloud is too closed from the user’s perspective or difficult to use. At the very least, if a cloud that can cooperate externally is created, it could provide or receive help in any situation.

In global crisis situations, all operations, whether government or private, are in emergency mode. Hospitals can operate almost all rooms as emergency rooms, and buildings with irregular uses can be used as temporary shelters. All administrative processes, including immigration procedures and various curfews, differ from normal. Now, big data analysis can somewhat predict regions where emergency patients may occur. Ambulances should be on standby in such areas to transport emergency patients as quickly as possible, even by one minute.

As the saying goes, failure is just data on the way to success; this experience should become a valuable asset. If bold changes encompassing both public and private sectors are embraced, Korea will boast government IT leadership with an unmatched super-gap. The imagination of global players benchmarking Korea’s new technologies and crisis response processes can become a reality.