Advancing Korea's digital government: The shift from digital government to digital platform government

Korea's digital government is recognized as an achievement as exemplary as the nation's rapid economic growth. Korea has been mapping out and implementing various dimensions of digital government since the late 1990s, including Government to Government, Government for Citizens, and Government to Business. There are a number of critical success factors which have fostered the effective promotion of digital government. Political leaders' visions of and commitment to digital government were crucial to its success, as were the building and strengthening of key infrastructure in the areas of information and communications technology, and finance and administration (e.g., the national identification system). Extending the initially successful digital government model, the Korean government has recently shifted its digital government paradigm and envisioned digital platform government which emphasizes the principle of digital by design, artificial intelligence and cloud-based public services, and collaborative public and private partnership for GovTech solutions for endemic social problems.