Dr Eun Ju Kim, Director, Cloud Promotion Centre in Public Sector, National Information Society Agency, South Korea
By Medha Basu
Women in GovTech Special Report 2017.
I am a director of the Cloud Promotion Centre for Public sector (CPCP) of the National Information Society Agency (NIA).
We aim to be a leader in applied cloud computing within the Korean government, focusing on using public cloud computing through policies and support projects. CPCP supports consulting, open cloud platforms, cloud stores and policies for public sector cloud activation.
What has been the most exciting thing that you worked on in 2017?
The Open Cloud Platform (PaaS-TA), which has been developed through government R&D support for the past three years, has been contributing to the creation of a domestic cloud platform ecosystem for the private and public sector.
NIA launched PaaS-TA based on open source software called Cloud Foundry, and enabled the open cloud platform ecosystem through close collaboration with companies that are leading the cloud computing industry in Korea such as Koscom, SK, KT, and LG CNS. We established the foundation with various software companies in Korea for applying cutting-edge technologies such as IoT, Big Data, and AI to the cloud platform.
What tool or technique particularly interests you for 2018?
As container-based virtualisation becomes popular, the technology that takes centre in the cloud computing these days is Kubernetes developed by Google, accelerating the development and the delivery of cloud-native applications.
Cloud Foundry, one of the most widely used open source software platforms in the world, is already adopting to deploying containers using Kubernetes. In keeping with this move, we are under research and development with plans to upgrade Kubernetes by 2018.
I am also keen to fuse cloud computing and other technologies such as IoT, Big data and AI.
What was the greatest challenge that you overcame in 2017? If you were to share one piece of advice that you learned, what would it be?
Alluring the public sector to cloud computing was difficult. In order to do this, we realised that it is essential to establish easy and convenient cloud service procurement system, to improve understanding of public cloud, and to expand empathy more effectively. We will continue to pursue it from a long-term perspective.
What book did you read in 2017 that most interested or inspired you?
The Art of Grace by Sarah L. Kaufman. We are used to hurrying up to achieve many goals during our lifetime; it emphasises the importance of slowing down, planning and tolerance for your graceful life.
Who inspired you in 2017, and why?
Our citizens. Tens of thousands people held candlelight rallies at the end of last year. The power from citizen has changed Korea rapidly these days.