The main reason behind doing a LIFT conference in South Korea is that we think this country is basically an opportunity for Europeans and Americans to have a preview of what their society might be in a near future. Most of the important technological trends start in Korea five years before they hit us. Think of citizen journalism (started by Ohmynews in 2000), social networking (Cyworld, 1999), or knowledge sharing websites (Naver Knowledge iN who became Yahoo Answers for us).

As Korea is, in the words of an Internet executive I met recently, “good at having ideas, bad at exporting them”, all this was so far a well kept secret. But the buzz is mounting, and at Stream07 almost all Asians were from South Korea. The press is also looking at the country of the morning calm with excitement. The latest article comes from CNN who published a story called “A day in the (digital) life of a South Korean boy“. Extracts:

 This peek into the everyday life of an imaginary South Korean boy named Insoo Kim offers insight into what the life of youths in the rest of the world might be like in the near future. […]

Insoo doesn’t even have to take the phone out of his pocket to send an SMS. He knows how to slide it open, which buttons to push how many times to reach the “Send SMS” menu option, compose the entire text message, and hit the send button — all without even looking at the phone. This is especially handy when he needs to send an SMS during class. […]

Insoo has a difficult math problem as homework. He posts it up on Naver Knowledge iN, a popular online Q&A service with some 70 million entries. Within about 10 minutes of posting, someone chimes in with a good answer, and Insoo awards him with some “Knowledge Power” points — knowledge-based economy in action among 14-year-olds.

Link

Interesting read that previews some of the things that are sure to hit us in the near future. How will you react when you will find ot your kids solve their math problems surfing on the knowledge-based economy? Time to ask yourself that question, anticipating might actually give you a small advantage for the day it will pop up in your life ;)

This entry was posted on Monday, October 8th, 2007 at 7:18 pm and is filed under asia, technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.