Talk:Student Projects:IT Abroad EastAsia

Finalizing our project

For this section-most recent posts at the top i.e. reverse chronological order (to help visibility of recent post)

Avichal 11:44, 10 Dec 2004 (PST)
Ideas/Points for Preface/Introduction

• How IT focus is shifting from US to elsewhere (in centers like China/India/East Asia)
• (IT) economies reducing their dependence on US – increased cooperation/trade amongst other countries
• IT as an equalizer: Doesn’t matter how far behind you are developmentally, Countries still have a chance of competing on an equal footing
• May be conclude with a line on why understanding IT issues globally (IT – Abroad) is vital

Avichal I read all the papers(Dec 3 drafts), and to say the least, I think all the chapters make for a very interesting read. Frankly, I knew nothing about IT in any of these countries before reading these papers, so it was interesting to read about different situations in all these countries and try to draw parallels.

• Japan - was my favorite read - probably since it was my first choice of country - Walker, you have done a good job of keeping it interesting at every point. What kept my interest was striking differences in the philosophy adopted by government and people of Japan and countries like USA. There is a parallel with India, where the mobile market has taken off after changes in regulation, although it is nowhere near the levels of that in Japan.
• Iran - It is heartening to note your conclusion that US sanctions have had little impact on IT in Iran. I think trade opens up a lot of closed doors, and your notes about US companies' presence in Iran demonstrates that. Possibly with Iran entering WTO at a future date, many such closed doors will be opened. However, the vetoing of some initiatives by the 'Council of Guardians' is unfortunate.
• China - Well, China has certainly done a better job at censorship than Iran :-) As for IP enforcement, maybe their model (specifically the law which allows patents to be placed under compulsory licensing if they are in the best interest of the people) is more efficient (less dead-weight loss) than a plain-vanilla IP enforcement model.
• South Korea - the rate of High speed penetration is enviable, even by US standards. It was interesting to see the different factors which have played into this boom. But the most interesting observation was that with the market being almost saturated in S. Korea, these companies are looking to expand abroad. This will be interesting to watch in future.
• Vietnam - I noticed quite a few parallels b/w Vietnam and India (Government's emphasis on use of IT by it's departments, lack of infrastructure), but Vietnam ofcourse is unlike India in most other aspects. Rates of piracy are alarming, I wonder how that would be affected as Microsoft has now started enforcing licensing more stringently (Win XP requiring activation and all - though I think that is required only in certain countries for now). Or may be the Pirates will stay one step ahead of these measures.

Avichal So on Fri Dec 3, we have to submit a draft. From Ed's email- A fine submission would be a set of chapters that look pretty much finished and have been integrated "physically" (one file) but not yet "intellectually."

So I suppose all of us can email our projects to the whole team, one person (I can volunteer) simply pastes that in a single word document, and sends it out to Ed/Tapan/Stevve (Not sure about that) and cc's the whole team.

Ofcourse after that we need to work on integrating the chapters together, since we are pretty much covering seperate topics, I was thinking maybe we could write a preface, which could say - discuss the IT environment abroad and how it affects US. I am thinking really short, definitely less than a page, maybe just 1/2 paragraphs. Just an idea, we can go forward if everyone likes it.

Ofcourse one person can also take charge of making sure the formatting looks similar between the chapters (I have a prediliction towards using Style dropdown in Word to set Heading1, heading2 etc. for all the headings).

Earlier Discussions

Moving some earlier discussions down the chain.

Introductions

Walker

Basic Background: I am enrolled in the Professional Masters Program at UW, and during the day I am a Software Design Engineer in Test for the Windows Server team.

Background on Topic: My knowledge of East Asia consists mostly of what I've read in English books/magazines/newspapers and seen in movies. Other than that I spent a couple of weeks vacation time in Thailand (and went on the airport sponsored afternoon tour of Singapore). That being said one of my hobbies on the side is to read policy books and the last few months or so I have been reading a lot on East Asia. I find the region interesting because it seems clear to me that the world's economic and cultural center of gravity is shifting to it, and I don't think many westerners have taken a good look at the implications.

Tentative Project Interests:

• IT interrelationships in East Asia -- Focusing specifically on the growing intercooperation of East Asian nations in IT. In particular, there seems to be an interesting story to tell regarding the growing ties between China, Japan, and South Korea... IPV6, mobiles, Linux; what are the implications for Open Source, and the broader structure of the software industry? What are the economic motivations for increasing ties?

• IT Ecosystem in Japan -- How does IT fit into Japan's overall industrial policy? How does Japan's ecosystem compare to that of the United States? What is Japan's role in the growing cooperation between Japan, China, and South Korea in IT?

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EimanZ

Basic Background: Hello, I'm a Microsoft Software Developer in the TabletPC/MobilePC test team. I did my undergrad at UC Berkeley. I was born in Iran and lived there until I was 6, and moved to CA with my family after that.

Background on Topic: As I was looking around the Wiki and saw the topic of IT Abroad, i immediatly started wondering how the IT industry functions in a country like Iran. Iran, as you all may know, is under sanctions from the U.S., and its relations with other countries have only recently been getting better. I've taken courses on Iran and read up all the time on news about Iran. Focusing on Iran's IT industry is new to me, however, because i only recently realized how much was going on over there.

The IT industry seems to be heavily regulated (as with most other industries in Iran) yet there is a revolution going on with the youth of Iran and their expansive use of the Internet. Thus, i really want to focus on Iran's IT, and i think that, if we wanted to, we can take all the different profiles of countries and try to create a main thesis around the paper. My thoughts are that we'll see in all these countries a tendency for government to want to control the industry (and some succeeding), and yet the population's tendency to promote freedom of information, and the corporations playing in between, attempting to please both customer and the government.

Avichal Hi EimanZ, I think integrating Iran into our Course topic would be extremely difficult. We have started with the scope of 'East Asia' (China, Japan, South Korea & maybe ASEAN countires) but intend to narrow down the scope quite a bit. We will most likely end up working on a particular IT/Public Policy factor for a single country or that limited region (most likely only covering Japan/China/South Korea). Fitting Iran into this equation would not be possible, as it has no interaction/corelation with East Asian countries.

I myself am from India, but find the dyanmics of IT sector in East Asian region fascinating. I welcome you to join our group in that scope, in what I think, will be an exciting project.

EimanZ How exactly will incorporating Iran in be any more difficult that dicussing China and Japan in the same paper? China and Japan have vastly different governments, and I imagined vastly different ways of dealing with IT. I thought the idea was for each person to contribute a profile of a single country, then at one point we get together and tie our findings together. I'm not sure if the prof will allow for me to work on my own paper and I don't know if anyone else is intereted in looking at the IT indsutry in Iran with me. I'll e-mail him and ask.

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Lars

Basic Background: I'm a Microsoft Dev Lead in the Developer Tools division, and went to Northwestern for my undergrad.

Background on Topic: I'm fascinated with the industry in the west's desire to treat China as if it was an extension of the United States or another Mexico, despite the amazing cultural differences. I'm not as familiar as I'd like to be with all of the legal and social differences, and I'm interested in helping map out what they are and how they impact us.

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Avichal

Basic Background: I am in the Technology group at Washington Mutual(in Seattle, downtown). Enrolled in the PMP Program at UW. I am originally from India.

Background on Topic: I am fascinated by how the cultural and social precepts differ in East Asian countries (esp. Japan) and how they affect the work culture. I'm afraid that our topic would have to pick an IT/Public Policy angle, but I am hoping during the course of working on the project, I'll get to learn more about the culture of these nations.

Tentative Projects:

• What steps Japanese goverment has tried and is trying to boost their IT industry - they have never really recovered from the crash in 1989/90. Ofcourse it's industry wide but we can cover it from an IT perspective. Also we could draw some important conclucsions on steps US government should take (or not) in the current sluggish economy.
• Co-operation in IT between China/Japan/South Korea :- cover how these countries are setting aside their differences and working together to revolutionaize IT in that region.

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Hyojoo

Basic Background: I do software design and development at Wavelink, Kirkland. PMP,UW. I did my undergrad at 'Ewha' in S. Korea. (When the 520 bridge traffic does not look too bad, I take the class at the UW campus. Otherwise, I go to the Microsoft campus.)

Background on Topic: I read about East Asian IT industry from newspapers, magazines and online. I haven't had a chance to extensively look into the dynamics of technology between the region and the US or the dynamics among the region yet, but I am familiar with the trend that IT advanced countries in the region are helping other countries in the region (South North issue) to build IT infrastructures (i.e. networks), that the region has many relationships with US consulting companies such as Accenture. Also, there are national scale US technology adoption like S. Korea adopting the Qualcomm's CDMA in 1993, etc. I remember this was a big issue socially (various problems with Qualcomm), and the implementation of the CDMA technology is still playing a big role in S. Korea's IT industry. I think such phenomenon is notable and we/rest of the world can learn about such examples and make better policies.

Tentative Project Interests: See below. To focus on the objective of the project, one of my thoughts is to look at various problems/troubles/issues relating to IT relations/IT cultures between US and east Asia and come up with possible policies for fairness and prosperities on all parties.

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hbui

: Basic BackgroundI'm a senior studying Environmental Science and Public Policy at UC Berkeley. I was always intrigued when I hear news about IT and IP, yet, I was frustrated because I didn't understand the fundamentals of IT or IP to decipher what the news was saying. Hence the push for me to take this class.

Background on Topic: I want to research the current problems and issues relating to IT in Vietnam. My family is from Vietnam, and my parents would tell me how the Vietnamese government always tries to monitor and control the IT industry. It would be interesting to understand how the industry thrives despite the barriers posed by the Vietnamese government.

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Can Pham

Basic Background: I am a senior at UCB, studying economics and math. I have taken some computer science and engineering classes, but nothing comprehensive.

Background on Topic: I was born in Vietnam and visited the country twice. I hope to do business one day there, so I find IP policy in VN of great interest. I do not know much about the IP environment in VN except for what is in the news.

Tentative Project Interests: I want to explore the current IP policy in VN and its enforcement. Then look into its current relationship with other countries and their future prospects.

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Discussion to finalize Project Topic/Scope

Avichal Firstly can I request that we primarily use the Wiki for communication. This is also suggested by the professors as per Project Schedule

Next, we do need to work on finalizing the project topic/scope. To quickly summarize the emails: Canpham: presented 2 options (paraphrased)

1. Cover all selected countries
2. Focus on Southeast Asia

Votes were:
Option 1: Canpham, EimanZ, Walker, Lars, Hbui, Hyoojoo Option 2: Avichal :-) (but I'll go with 1, Ha ha)

But we still need to decide the scope/focus of the project, by selecting a set of subtopics which resonates with all the countries selected, and forming a template, as per Ed Lazowska's suggestion. For convenience I place this excerpt from his email - "...Come up with a "template" that you can use to compare and contrast policies in the various countries -- in other words, your project would consist of a set of "chapters" each of which focused on one country, had one or two authors, and had the same approximate structure as the other chapters...".

So unless someone has a better idea to do this, let's throw out subtopics of interest here on the wiki, and then we could chose the ones to work on from that. Vote for the subtopics of your choise by adding your signature at the end of the line (~~~ is the shortcut for it). Ofcourse you can add any subtopic you like.

(Some borrowed from discussions above, feel free to edit language. But keep it brief, if lengthy discussions are warranted, feel free to put a link to a seprate page)

• What government is doing to bridge the Digital Divide Votes: Avichal
• Intellectual Property - how thinking/policy differs from US Votes:
• Open Source and it's adoption Votes:
• IT Ties with US Votes:
• How the Country's Culture has affected it's IT Development Votes:
  (not a public policy issue, but interesting)
• Freedom of Speech(Information)/Government Regulations and Internet Votes:
  (defintely applies to Iran, China, not sure about others)

Walker 19:13, 1 Nov 2004 (PST) Avichal, the sub-topics above are good, but I think we should consider a little more open-ended approach. Instead of fixing one above sub-topic that we can then evaluate in all countries, we could take a broader angle -- for example evaluating each countries IT Ecosystem as a whole, but give special attention to those aspects that are different or interesting from a US perspective. This might make sense because some sub-topics are interesting with respect to some countries but not others -- for example Intellectual Property in China is relatively more interesting that IP in Japan, also if the focus were just IP then a lot of what is really interesting about IT in Iran would be left out.

Given this, we could have a very simple template that gives room for each sub-team to fill in the most interesting stuff about the nation's IT Ecosystem. A RAND study I just read on IT in East Asia basically divided the overall presentation into two broad categories: IT Usage, IT Production. Under IT Usage they talked about how many people are connected to the internet and with what devices, what applications are typically in use, etc. Under IT Production they talked about the structure of the software industry, the R&D structure, government assistance, intercooperation with neighbors etc.

I don't think we should duplicate the RAND study's structure, but we need something about as open-ended to make sure the most interesting aspects of each countries IT Ecosystem are examined, particularly since the range of countries has now broadened.

Avichal 14:30, 2 Nov 2004 (PST) Walker, I completely like your suggestion. The idea was to get this kick-started. Besides the categories you mentioned maybe we can cover 'IT Relations' (in that we can cover ties with US, or with surrounding region) Avichal 01:14, 4 Nov 2004 (PST) Uh..let me completely backtrack on that :-). After consideration, I think it'll be a futile exercise to cover a broad topic, we have to focus on specific policy issues (see my later post)

Hyojoo 17:18, 2 Nov 2004 (PST) What about looking into each country's IT culture and impact on their IT eco-system. How the big players in each country have dealt with global big powers(Microsoft, Oracle, Qualcomm, IBM, HP etc.) and the black market issues. And then research on the regional cooperations including the government's approach based on the characters of these 'entities'. Avichal, I like all the bulleted items that you listed. How narrow should our project be? I am wondering how difficult it might be to cover most of the issues you have mentioned.

Lars I'd also like to look at how companies in the US are investing in the countries and what they're doing to protect their IP rights, interests (government or physical), and people. Hyojoo, as far as how narrow or broad it should be, I think it might be easier to be broad in the template and then (like Walker said), narrow in more as we actually write for specific countries.

Avichal 01:14, 4 Nov 2004 (PST) Firstly to clarify, the ideas I posted above are just what came to me at the time of the post, they are just a template. I don't even claim to be interested in all of them myself. Moving on, as per the discussion, it seems it might work if we identify broad areas/topics and then in that area, we select a specific policy issue for the country of our interest. Since I think only by focusing on specific policy issues will we benefit from this course and this project (and well that's what all of us want to do anyway). So Lars, Walker, Hyoojoo and others, is this what you think it may look like (do not get stuck on the examples I use, these are just ..eh.. examples):-
Say we select IT Policy, Relations & ICT Efforts for Societal Development as 3 broad topics.

• Japan:
  • IT Policy:Government Policy towards IT R&D during recession
  • IT Relations: IT Relations with ASEAN countries
  • ICT for Society: ICT efforts to help Agriculture
• China
  • IT Policy: Policy towards Intellectual Property
  • IT Relations: Relations with US IT Industry
  • ICT for Society:ICT Efforts to bridge education gap
• (similarly for) South Korea:... Vietnam:... Iran:... Africa:...

If we agree on this, then we still need an outpouring of topic ideas that each one of us want to cover, so maybe we can determine broad general categories from those. Also we'll have to run this by the professors to see if they approve.
I am not too excited about the above approach though, I think the broad 'categories' is just a pretense, instead maybe we can simply do one topic (of our choice) per country (has to be related to IT/Pulic Policy ofcourse). And the final product will be like the 'Chasing Moore's Law' book, which covers various IT Policy issues in US. So where the title states 'IT Policy in the US', ours will be 'IT Policy Abroad' (or words to that effect) and would cover various IT Policy issues in different countries. So it may look something like..(again these are just examples)

• IT_Abroad
  • Africa:Effect of Wireless Telecom on Rural Africa
  • China: How the US IT companies are expanding in China (plans, challenges...)
  • Iran: Internet and it's effect on freedom of speech/information
  • Japan:Japan's role in IT development in the East Asian region
  • South Korea: Driving Forces for Rapid IT Growth
  • Vietnam: Effects of Open-Source software

Hey, it may even get published some day :-)

Walker 14:00, 4 Nov 2004 (PST) Avichal, I think the second approach you suggest is a really good idea with one or two modifications. If there are two (or more) people working on a country, each should do a subtopic of their choice within the country. This way we can work fairly independently and cover more ground. The subteam working on a particular country can then work together so that any common themes that emerge between the two subtopics are presented well (no needless repeating, no contradictory statements that don't acknowledge the contradiction, etc.)

Pham 18:51, 4 Nov 2004 (PST) All the suggestions above are great, but I believe there will be limitations on the availiable resources on certain subtopics, i.e. societal effects, international/regional IT/IP relations. The basic duty at hand is to report the general IT/IP environment in our respective countries. I propose leaving discretion of subtopics/specific issues to members of each country to discuss under "IT/IP environment." However to have common thread among each country, we should discussion what is known of international relations and possibly, an analysis of improvements of IP/IT policy.

Avichal 11:07, 15 Nov 2004 (PST) Overall , I think we have received encouraging feedback re: our Project (you should have received the email on Sun 11/14). Prof. Lazowska mentions that it might help to have a more specific focus for each country. Also, I would mention that please use the wiki to post the latest progress on your topics. It would be a little extra effort, but we could learn if not help each other. Also, it might help in making a cohesive final report if we are in sync as to the approaches others are taking. But overall, I am pretty excited about our project :-)

Discussion with Prof. Ed lazowska in the last class

Me and Hyoojoo got a chance to speak with Ed yesterday regarding our project. I showed him our wiki page discussion and he approved our last idea, i.e. of different chapters on each country, covering specific issues of interest to that country. This is a radical shift from our previous effort of trying to setup a template and apply it to each country. I have updated the Main Project page as per this new structure. Please review that.

If 2 persons are covering the same country there can be 2 distinct chapters on one country. Ofcourse they can choose to collaborate on one topic, or cover 2 complementary topics as subtopics of one main topic etc.

Given this approach, I think the topics covered for each country should be fairly distinct. Though I wouldn't worry about that till we actually propose our individual topics for each country. After that we can see if everything fits.

My comments to Eiman/Lars outlines

Avichal Lars, Eiman, your outlines look good. It'll be great if you could think of a title/central theme as well. That'll help giving focus to the project. The projects shouldn't look like "IT in Japan" , "IT in China", "IT in Iran" etc...

The central theme can be pretty generic, e.g. Eiman could cover it from an angle of "IT in a theocratic nation".
BTW I think we are operating a little bit on a different page. My final idea of the project was that each of us would cover a particular IT/Policy angle for our nation of choice, but Lars/Eiman's outlines seem pretty generic. Hence my suggestion of a central theme, which I think would balance both our approaches. My 2 cents.

Outline of Iran section.

EimanZ

For my section on Iran, I want to focus on the following high-level questions. Let me know of any suggestions.

• Industry/Government relations
  • How is the Iranian government currently controlling the IT industry?
  • How is the government promoting innovation and/or growth of the IT industry?
  • What are the laws currently in place regarding the IT industry, including laws about *Intellectual Property protection, Copyrights, and Patents.
  • How big a role does government corruption play into its affects on Iran’s ability to maintain and grow its IT industry?
  • How have the U.S Sanctions on Iran affected Iran's IT industry?

• University’s roles in IT
  • What are the Iranian University’s roles in the current IT industry?
  • Have there ever been collaborative efforts between Iranian Universities and the IT industry?

• The Role of the Internet
  • How has the Internet changed the landscape of Iran’s IT industry?
  • What percentage of the country is ‘wired’?
  • What areas of the country have access? Are there any plans (either by government or industry) to expand the access and lessen the ‘Digital Divide’?
  • How effective has censorship of Internet content been in Iran?

• Foreign business: Outsourcing
  • How much do Iranian companies outsource their IT needs?
  • Is the government involved in controlling the outsourcing of jobs?

• Foreign business: Insourcing
  • Do foreign companies come to Iran to get IT work done?
  • What role has the government and/or other organizations taken to increase insourcing?

Outline of China section.

Lars

I'm following Eiman's example for what I'd like to cover on China. As mentioned above, I'd also love to get any feedback anybody has on other areas of research into China that would be interesting.

• Multiple government styles
  • What's the difference in IT regulations between Hong Kong and mainland China?
  • How are the usages of IT among the citizens different between HK and mainland?

• Censorship
  • What things that are legal for people to browse or do with IT in the US are illegal in China?
  • What things that are legal for businesses to do with IT in the US are illegal in China?
  • What sorts of penalties are enacted for infringement?

• China-centric investment
  • Preferential treatment of government towards China-supported IT products over America-provided IT
  • Open source privitization

• Foreign business
  • What types of IT investments are other countries making in China?
  • What types of sales of IT products are being made to China?

Outline of South Korea section.

Hyojoo 08:56, 7 Nov 2004 (PST) This is the section/page on South Korea. Although the South Korea's approach on the open source projects was interesting, I thought the research on the IT growth from the IT-ecosystem point of view would be more specific. Let me know of any suggestions.

The policies behind the rapid development of the South Korean IT infrastructure

Initial Project Statement (moved from main page)

Avichal 12:32, 5 Nov 2004 (PST) Moved to make place from the Main Page for our more concrete project outline.

Project Statement: For now, the subject of the project is left intentionally vague. As more people join and we'll negotiate a final project topic (based on interests and the availability of source material) that falls inside the overall spectrum of IT issues in East Asia. The ideas below give some idea of the project direction. In general, the question to be resolved is whether the emphasis should be placed on issues involving one paricular nation in East Asia, or whether the emphasis should involve an issue that affects the region in general. There should be some overlap given either choice, as the discussion concerning one particular nation would probably need to include a sub-discussion on its relationship with the rest of the region.

Some Ideas:

• Profile of <nation>'s IT ecosystem: How does culture, level of development, political structure, broader industrial policy affect <nation>'s IT ecosystem. Who were/are the major players (IT firms, Universities, Bureaucracies, scientists, etc.) involved in IT development, and what are the next developments likely to be? Of particular interest are the ways in which <nation>'s policies and practices differ from the United States, and if there is anything that can be learned or applied from <nation>'s model. Also of interest is <nation>'s ecosystem in relation to the broader global community. <nation> might be...
  • China: With a fast growing economy and IT industry, and having major relevance to the offshore outsourcing issue. Some questions to explore: What do China's growth prospects mean for the future of the IT industry in the U.S.? What is the government doing to promote IT growth, and what policies are effective/ineffective? How does China's conception of intellectual property differ from that of the U.S. and what are the implications?
  • Japan: A major industrialized nation, with living standards roughly on par with the U.S., but with an economic system that operates on different principles. There is a lot of English language material on Japan, and after some preliminary investigation, and it looks like there are some pretty good sources of information on IT in Japan. Some questions: How does IT fit into Japan's overall industrial policy? What is Japan's role in the growing cooperation between Japan, China, and South Korea in IT?

• IT in East Asia: Focusing specifically on the growing intercooperation of East Asian nations in IT. In particular, there seems to be an interesting story to tell regarding the growing ties between China, Japan, and South Korea... IPV6, mobiles, Linux; what are the implications for Open Source, and the broader structure of the software industry?

Expressing interest in joining project (Avichal)

Avichal Hi, I read this project page and Talk:IT Abroad and would be interested in joining your group, if it’s ok with you.
We do need some work on finalizing a topic out of the ones suggested and defining it’s scope. As to selecting a country, my vote would be for Japan, it’ll be a great opportunity to compare and contrast with the US public policies regarding IT.

Covering a region would be interesting too. Particularly if we focus on Inter-cooperation amongst the countries mentioned, covering how policy has shifted over the years, and how it has impacted the IT environment, what policies need to be adopted to move the region into an IT leadership position…etc

Between the 2 (One nation, or a Region), it’s a tossup. If covering a region we could each cover one nation to start with, and then ofcourse exhange notes. If we are covering a single nation, we could divide by areas:-

• Nation’s policy relating to Workforce
• Government Sponsor/Aid/Funding
• IT Environment: University/Government/Industry
• Collaboration with other countries on IT…etc.

I am not sure if you attend class at UW or Microsoft. If at UW, then we can discuss before/after the class. We could also discuss with Professor Ed Lazowska in order to narrow down and select a final topic scope

IT in S. Korea and East Asia (Hyojoo)

Hyojoo

Hi, I am a software engineer in Wavelink, Kirkland enrolled in the PMP at UW. After comtemplating on the various interesting topics, I have decided to look into the "IT abroad" topic, especially in S. Korea and the surrounding region.

South Korea's IT industry has been an unusual case in that the country has experienced rapid growth in the past 10 years. The country exports IT to ASEAN countries and cooperates with Japan and China especially in the open source projects.

I am interested in focusing on the comparison of the driving force and the IT environment - computer gaming industry driving the broadband network services, or densly populated area for wiring the nation in a short amount of time, etc. I am interested in looking into how these countries are different from that of the US, and how the cooperation of the east Asian IT will affect international IT trends and policies.

I can read Korean text and provide how the Korean press is viewing their IT prospects in regards to the rest of the world.

Avichal Hi Hyojoo, we'll be glad for you to join this project. I'd suggest listing your name on Project Teams and CSEP590TU:UW. And I suppose on Student_Projects:IT_Abroad_EastAsia as well :-)

Hyojoo Hi Avichal, Thanks! I'm looking forward to working with all of you.