With less than 40 days until the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference in Busan next month, South Korea’s preparatory committee under the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning is making all-out efforts to promote the landmark meeting.

Through social networks, online games, outdoor advertising banners and Web cartoons, it seeks to introduce the ITU and increase public participation.

Korea’s ICT Ministry is partnering with other government agencies to run its public relations campaign with hopes of raising the importance of economic development through ICT.

The ITU conference in Busan from Oct. 20 to Nov. 7 will bring together some 3,000 government officials, corporate executives and non-governmental organization workers to discuss and standardize a variety of pending technology issues such as cybersecurity, digital disparity and radio frequency allocations.

Participants will include some 150 ministerial-level officials from 193 economies in the ITU, which is considered the United Nations of information and communication technology.

The country will also hold other events on the sidelines such as the World IT Show, Mobile 360 and a global industry summit on fifth-generation mobile communication.

Last month, Asian economies held an ITU preparatory meeting in Bangkok, Thailand, and endorsed the so-called the Asia Pacific Telecommunity Common Proposal.

The APT Proposal included two key suggestions from Korea ― “harnessing the benefits of convergence through the utilization of ICT applications” and “facilitating the Internet of Things to prepare for a globally connected world,” according to the ICT Ministry.

“Korea suggested to other Asian members that the ICT should be used and applied in various industries to increase efficiency, (the number of) jobs and establish a creative economy through co-prosperity,” it said in a press release.

“The world economies should strengthen collaborations in building an infrastructure for the IoT.”

Korea will become Asia’s second country to hold the ITU conference after Japan in 1994.

Asia’s fourth-largest economy was unanimously selected as the ITU host country in Mexico in 2000.

Korea became an official member of the ITU in 1952 during the Korean War. Then, it sought international assistance to rebuild its telecommunication networks, which were mostly destroyed during the first three months of the South-North conflict.

However, the ICT Ministry noted that Korea faced division over membership votes, especially between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, but garnered enough votes, despite not receiving any from six countries, to become an ITU member.

Korea, which once received assistance, now seeks to be a donor country in helping developing economies build their telecommunications infrastructure.

By Park Hyong-ki (hkp@heraldcorp.com)