Page 71 - ITU-T Focus Group Digital Financial Services – Executive Summary

Figure 3 – Types of data visualizations available on the Seoul Open Data Plaza

2.2 Implementation

The Seoul Open Data Plaza would not have come to fruition without the dedicated involvement of various
key actors, players, and policies that have ensured its successful implementation.
After his election, Mayor Won-soon Park pledged to develop an open government for the city. He instructed
the Information System Planning Bureau under Seoul’s Chief Information Officer (CIO), to commence open
data initiatives and oversee an open government plan, which included planning budgets, conducting
feasibility studies, and implementing projects related to open government— one of which is the Seoul Open
Data Plaza. Mayor Won-soon Park, the Seoul CIO, the Director of the Information System Division, Open Data
Divisions from the city’s 25 districts, the Korea Information Research and Development Institute, and the
NGO C.O.D.E were the main stakeholders involved in the initial development of the Seoul Open Data Plaza.
Currently, it is managed and improved by the Data & Statistics Division of SMG, while its maintenance and
upgrade are outsourced to IT companies.
SMG planned the development of the Seoul Open Data Plaza and inaugurated the website even before the
laws on open data were enacted by the Korean Government. SMG established the “Act on Public Data
Provision and Use of Data” and the “Ordinance for Provision and Use of Data in Seoul Metropolitan
Government” to support the setting up of the Seoul Open Data Plaza. The Korean Government’s
"Government 3.0" and the “Seoul Open Government Policy”, both aimed at encouraging innovation,
cooperation, and communication, also promoted the utilization of the portal. Following the launch of the
Seoul Open Data Plaza, the Ministry of the Interior of Korea established and started operating its Korea Public
Data Portal (data.go.kr) that manages of data requests and asks cities including Seoul to provide their data
to the portal. In view of the advancements in this domain across the country, it is evident that Seoul has
pioneered the development of open data initiatives in Korea.

SMG and all its related agencies and district governments have a specific division responsible for open data
policies, with the Information System Planning Bureau taking the reins on monitoring the progress of various
open data policy initiatives. SMG regularly organises hackathons, information sessions, and expos related to
data, to encourage citizen participation and promote the use of public data. The Seoul Open Data Plaza is
also regulated and kept up-to-date to ensure its stability, relevance and resilience.

It cost 733,000 USD to develop the Seoul Open Data Plaza in 2011, and since then, SMG has spent around 1
million USD annually to maintain and upgrade the system and develop the data. The cost for maintenance is
expected to decrease once the system is converted to an open-source based system in 2017.

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