South Korean Government Unveils Massive Blockchain Development Program

The South Korean government has been doling out a great deal of grants and sponsorships to companies developing blockchain solutions for applications that will improve efficiency and reduce costs. The government stake in promoting the best options is to eventually contract the companies to provide their services to an appropriate government ministry when the projects reach readiness. Two such applications announced today in Seoul were for the National Police Agency and the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety.

The Ministry of Science and ICT and the Korea Internet Security Agency (KISA), two offices that are spearheading several blockchain-based projects across the country announced today the launch of the ‘Public Blockchain Leading Demonstration Project’ which will help innovate blockchain technology for use in public services and privately-led national-level tech projects. The hope is that under this innovation project, the demand for blockchain technology will rise across the public and private industry sectors.

The administrators of the project selected 10 consortia consisting of 24 total agencies to support. The budget provided is about $6 million.

The National Police Agency, one of the public agencies selected for this program, will establish a blockchain-based digital evidence management platform. The plan is to use blockchain technology to secure the integrity of all the stages of digital evidence collection including view history. It is expected that human rights will be easier to uphold and the reliability that proper law enforcement practices are utilized will be strengthened. Local blockchain company Innotree and IT firm Markany have been tapped to develop the blockchain for the police.

The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety will also be responsible for developing a blockchain platform. Theirs will be a blockchain-based food safety data platform that can check the authenticity of hygiene certificates of imported foods, and check the general state of raw ingredients in real time through a mobile app. LG CNS, Bluesys, and Solideos have been chosen to develop the platform.

The Ministry of Health and welfare will build a blockchain-based welfare benefit supply and demand management platform. The goal is to block redundant supply and demand, and to develop a platform that can operate without interference from a third-party arbitration agency. Local blockchain companies Daly Blockchain, Metabuild, and Magice will be in charge of this platform.

There are 6 additional public sector blockchain-based projects now in development. The National rural development Administration will develop a crop production distribution management platform. The Gangwon Province provincial government will develop a chronic disease integrated management platform with the help of IconLoop, UbiPlus, and Idaware. Gyeongsangnam Province will develop a distributed identity authentication public service platform. Sejong City will develop a self-driving car trust platform with the help of LG CNS and others. The Korea Expressway Corporation will develop a mutual trust toll settlement platform. Finally, Busan City, currently a hotbed of blockchain development with their regulation free zone, will take advantage of this program by developing a smart water supply quality management system.

Private-sector Projects

The private sector projects associated with the Public Blockchain Leading Demonstration Project aims to support the development and early commercialization of blockchain services that can be used in people’s everyday lives. 20 Consortia consisting of 60 companies have been chosen to each take a piece of the $4 million budget.

Doosan, Markany, and the Korea Productivity Center will build a blockchain-based video and voice contract support system for small business owners and individual contractors. This platform will not be face-to-face in an effort to increase efficiency and remove the reliance on trust for two or more parties to perform tasks or provide goods when not contractually obligated to.

Medibloc, Samsung Seoul Hospital, Seoul National University Hospital, Severance Hospital, and Yonsei University will work together to build a blockchain-based mobile document issuance platform. This will verify the validity of medical documents and expedite the care-giving process in various ways. Samsung has already been working on a similar project to allow patient users to speed up their care by acquiring medical documents from their homes rather than needing to make a visit to an office or hospital.

Finally, a blockchain-based smart digital freight way platform will be developed by Naver, LG CNS, the Korea Transport Association, and the consortium of Cargo Welfare Foundation. This platform aims to maintain the transparency of cargo with a device that allows participants to act as a blockchain node.

Without a doubt the now ever-present COVID-19 epidemic has sparked the urgency to complete these projects as they will facilitate greater social distancing between human operators. That distance will become commonplace in the Korean world at least in time and may become the lap of comfort if blockchain technology applications can be underlain in everyday use cases.

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