Easing Vulnerabilities with ICT... Ministry of Science and ICT to Promote "Digital Inclusion Act"

The 8th Consecutive On-site Meeting for Digital National Agenda

[Asia Economy Reporter Oh Su-yeon] The Ministry of Science and ICT announced that Park Yoon-kyu, the 2nd Vice Minister, held the 8th consecutive on-site meeting for digital national tasks at Seoul Central Post Office on the 30th to discuss digital inclusion policy directions for vulnerable groups.

This meeting was organized to discuss solutions to various social issues by checking the difficulties of suspected welfare blind spot households and resolving challenges in local welfare sites through communication with field personnel and experts. Related companies such as Everyoung People, XVision Technology, Kakao, Naver, KT, and affiliated organizations including the Korea Senior Citizens Association, Korea National Council on Social Welfare, and Korea Health Industry Development Institute participated.

The Ministry of Science and ICT has been continuously collecting field opinions since June to effectively implement digital national tasks. This meeting was the eighth in the series, held under the theme "Establishing Digital Universal Rights and Access Rights for an Inclusive Digital Society."

The Ministry introduced the ‘Welfare Registered Mail’ postal project, which utilizes the nationwide dense postal infrastructure to discover and resolve welfare blind spots and contribute to strengthening the social safety net.

This project involves postal workers visiting suspected blind spot households to deliver welfare benefit guidance mail, check for crisis situations, and report to local governments to provide proactive support to target households. It is currently being implemented in three local governments including Jongno-gu, Seoul, and plans to expand to eight throughout the year.

There was an opinion that companies, government, and local governments should pool their capabilities to actively use information and communication technologies (ICT) such as artificial intelligence (AI) to prevent vulnerable groups from falling into risk.

Woo Bo-hwan, head of the Korea Senior Citizens Association, suggested the necessity of digital education and job creation for the social and economic independence of the elderly.

Ok Chang-hoon, vice president of Naver, emphasized that digital technologies such as care calls using AI speakers can provide care services for vulnerable groups amid aging and the increase of single-person households.

In fact, Naver provides care services using AI speakers to 10,000 vulnerable people including elderly living alone, SK Telecom offers care services using AI speakers to 14,000 elderly and disabled people in cooperation with 74 institutions and local governments nationwide, and KT is distributing about 2,500 AI speakers for elderly care services, solving social problems through ICT.

Shin Hyung-chul, director of the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), presented human augmentation technologies that enhance the physical and cognitive abilities of people with disabilities. Discussions were also held on ensuring information accessibility for intelligent information products such as web, apps, and kiosks.

Vice Minister Park said, “As all areas of daily life and socio-economic activities are transitioning to digital, consideration and care for vulnerable groups in the digital field are essential to enhance the sustainability of our society and realize a country where everyone prospers together. We will strive to guarantee digital as a universal right that all citizens should enjoy and ensure that anyone can access digital anytime and anywhere to benefit from it. We will also conduct a comprehensive review to establish legal and institutional support such as the enactment of the Digital Inclusion Act and formulate technology development policies.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.