Events

Green and Digital: Accelerating Climate Action. Learning from the Korean Journey

March 3, 2022

Live streaming on this page

MULTIMEDIA

OVERVIEW
AGENDA
SPEAKERS

An accelerated digital transformation today creates challenges and opportunities for the green agenda: digital solutions are creating new ways for governments to optimize and implement innovations for more mitigation, adaptation, and monitory of climate change but at the same time increasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through a surge of energy usage.
The Republic of Korea was among the first to adopt a green policy initiative as part of the national development agenda. The Korean government made an early commitment to climate-friendly technological policies by announcing “Low Carbon, Green Growth” in 2008 and more recently announced its Korea New Deal. Its two pillars— Digital New Deal and Green New Deal— are serving as engines for the newly announced 2050 Carbon Neutral Strategy that focuses on three goals: carbon neutrality, economic growth, and improved quality of life.
Join the webinar to hear about Korea's current practices and challenges when implementing decarbonization strategies in the ICT sector. It will shed light on the following questions:
What are the options for reducing GHG emissions from the digital sector in the context of sustained long-term growth in the use of digital in developing countries? What is the role of digital in economic resilience and clean jobs?
What are the common themes relating to digital and data infrastructure that can contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation? What is the role of digital technologies in designing and implementing mitigation strategies in key GHG emitting sectors and adaptation strategies?
What are the policy options available to developing countries seeking to ensure that digital technologies provide the appropriate foundations for their national climate change strategies? What policies can enable decarbonization through digital technologies, data, and analytics in key social and economic sectors?
The World Bank Group Korea Office and the World Bank Digital Development Global Practice are hosting this webinar series on harnessing technologies for helping countries accelerate their digital transformation and advance towards data economy.

TIME (KST)

AGENDA

9:30 – 9:40

(10 min)

Openings

Hyeonsoo Yang, Director, Digital Planning Team, Global ICT Cooperation Department, National Information Society Agency (NIA)

Jason Michael Allford, Special Representative, World Bank Group Korea Office

9:40 – 10:25

(45 min)

Keynotes

Eun Kyoung PAIK, Program Manager, Institute of Information & Communications Technology Planning & Evaluation (IITP)

Topic: Review of Korea’s Green-Digital Agenda and long-term National Commitment towards carbon-neutral future with review of policy and regulatory framework

Yunmook Nah, Board Member and Technical Chair, Korea Data Center Council (KDCC) and Professor, Dankook University

Topic: Decarbonizing the ICT sector: a focus on Data Centers and infrastructure; Standards and incentives to participate in the national green ICT agenda

Sung Yong Son, Professor, Gachon University

Topic: Digital Innovation towards low-carbon energy sector; forward-looking Research agenda for effective mitigation; adapta

10:25 – 10:35

(10 min)

Discussion

Moderator: Mark Williams, Practice Manager, Global Knowledge and EAP region, World Bank

Jen JungEun Oh, Program Leader for Infrastructure Practice Group, IEADR, World Bank

10:35 – 10:40

(5 min)

Q & A

10:40 – 10:45

(5 min)

Concluding Remarks

Mark Williams, Practice Manager, Global Knowledge and EAP region, World Bank

Hyeonsoo Yang

Director, Digital Planning Team, Global ICT Cooperation Department, National Information Society Agency (NIA)
Hyeonsoo Yang is Director at National Information Society Agency (NIA), and he has been working for NIA since 2000. He got M.S. in Public Administration at Seoul National University in Korea. He worked as a director of the Global Academy of NIA in 2021. He has also worked as an Executive Principal of the Convergence Planning Team and the Smart Infrastructure & Environment Team from 2019 to 2020. He has also worked in the Personal Information Protection team that monitors and investigates organizations and companies which violate the Personal Information Protection Act. Currently, he has been in charge of the Global Digital Consulting Projects, which support developing countries to innovate not only the government itself but also society.

Jason M. Allford

Special Representative, World Bank Korea Office
Jason Allford is the Special Representative of World Bank Group (WBG)’s Korea Office. In this role, Mr. Allford oversees the office as a global hub on innovation and technology for sustainable development, bringing lessons from Korea’s development experience – particularly in relation to innovation, technology, and green growth – and applying them to the World Bank’s operational work in other World Bank member countries. An Australian national, Mr. Allford joined the Australian Government in 1994, focusing on macroeconomic analysis, forecasting and fiscal policy. He previously worked at the World Bank Group from 2014 to 2018, representing 15 countries from Asia and the Pacific including Korea at the Bank’s Board of Executive Directors. He has also worked as an adviser on fiscal policy to governments in Africa, East Asia Pacific, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. Mr. Allford holds a Master’s degree in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Tasmania.

Mark Williams

Practice Manager, Global Knowledge and EAP Region, World Bank
Mark Williams is Practice Manager for Global Knowledge and Expertise in the Digital Development Global Practice. He is an economist with over 20 years of experience in the economics, regulation, and strategy of the digital sector, covering a range of specialist areas including strategy, policy, regulation, financial analysis corporate restructuring, and litigation. He has worked in some of the world’s leading economic consulting firms - NERA, Frontier Economics, Deloitte, and Berkeley Research Group (BRG). Previously in his career, he spent six years as an economist in the World Bank’s Global ICT team focusing on analytical work and operations in the Middle East and Africa.

Eun Kyoung PAIK

PM, Institute of Information & Communications Technology Planning & Evaluation (IITP)
Eun Kyoung PAIK is working for Institute of Information and Communications Technology Planning and Evaluation (IITP) affiliated Ministry of Science and ICT as a PM, holding a leading role of planning National R&D projects on Digital Society Innovation. She received a PhD at Seoul National University in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Korea. Prior to her current position, she worked for KT (Korea Telecom) as a vice president in the area of SDN (Software-Defined Networking), NFV (Network Function Virtualization), Cloud, and 5G Virtualization. She was a visiting researcher and visiting professor in IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, U.S.A, Keio University, Japan, and ENST (École Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications) Bretagne, France for collaboration on AI applications and Mobile Internet in 1994, 2003, and 2004, respectively. She holds the position of vice president at OSIA (Open Standards and ICT Association, Korea) and leadership roles in international journals and conferences such as a member of IEEE Network Editorial Board. She has been contributed to global standardization bodies of IETF and 3GPP since 2000 and 2019, respectively. She had been a vice president of Future Internet Project Group (PG 220) at TTA (Telecommunications Technology Association, Korea) for 10 years since 2009. Her research interests include Digital Twin, AI, Big Data, Cloud-based Services, and Digital-based Carbon Neutrality.

Yunmook Nah

Board Member, Korea Data Center Council (KDCC)/ Professor, Dankook University
Yunmook Nah received his B.E., M.E. and PhD degrees in Computer Engineering from Seoul National University. He is currently a full professor in the Department of Computer Engineering and dean of College of Software Convergence at Dankook University, Korea. He was a visiting scientist of IBM Watson Research Center in 1991 and a visiting scholar of University of California, Irvine from 2001 to 2002. From 2011 to 2013, he was a national R&D program director in the next generation computing area, including human computing, cloud computing and green computing. He was the president of KIISE Database Society from 2013 to 2014 and the president of KIISE (Korean Institute of Information Scientists and Engineers) in 2021. He is currently the president of Association of Software-centered Universities, funded by Ministry of Science and ICT, Korea. From 2009, he joined in green ICT policy making activity and was a member of Green IDC Council, organized by Korean government. From 2013, he actively participated in the Green Data Center Certification Program of Korea and now is a board member of Korea Data Center Council.

Sung-Yong Son

Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering, Gachon University
He received his B.S. and M.S. from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Korea, and his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. From 2000 to 2005, he worked at 4DHomeNet and Icross-technology. He is a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and director of the Institute of Smart Energy Convergence, Gachon University, Korea. He was a visiting scholar at Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory (LBNL) in 2014. His main research interests include smart grids, smart homes, and smart cities.

Jen JungEun Oh

Program Leader for Infrastructure Practice Group, IEADR, World Bank
Jen Jungeun Oh, PhD, is the Infrastructure Sector Leader for China and Mongolia and Senior Transport Specialist at the World Bank. Over the last 13 years at the World Bank, Jen led a number of lending operation and analytical work in transport, infrastructure and related sectors, and across diverse client countries in Africa, Europe, Central Asia, and East Asia Regions. Her areas of expertise include climate change, infrastructure financing, transport economics and transport innovations.