How we openthe National Assembly

in South Korea,with Technology

Lucy Park @ Team POPONGNov 8th, 2014

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Abstract This talk consists of two parts.

We introduce how this movement all started, andwhat we've done since.Then, as a tech-centered group mainly formed ofvoluntary citizens in their 20-30s, we share someissues that we have either overcome or are goingthrough.

Slideshttp://tiny.cc/g0vhtmlhttp://tiny.cc/g0vpdf

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박은정 a.k.a., lucypark, echojuliett, e9t

PhDc for data mining at Seoul National UniversityTeam POPONG member

- Goal: Lowering barriers of knowledge via technology

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Team POPONG http://en.popong.com

Non-partisan100% part-timeVoluntary groupStarted off with studentsMost are engineers in their 20-30sGeographically located in various parts of the worldPrimarily focused on, but not limited to opening the national parliament,the "National Assembly", in South Korea

- Goal: Make legislation understandable for ordinary citizens- Approach: Collect and organize various government resources

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How we met

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How it all started

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Politics in South KoreaAtmosphere

There is a national "hate" for politicsPolitics was very corrupt in the pastPeople were arrested for talking freely until 80sAt first, friends, families give us a weird stare, when we say we'vemade a political service

Elections1 vote for all 20+ year-old citizensNational Assembly vote every 4 yrs, Presidential vote every 5 yrs

300 members in National AssemblyThe vote rate is low, more than half don't know their representative

Fun facts on South Korea

Established in 194850M population (2012)Seoul + satellites: 25M1hr difference with Taipei

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What's the problem?People don't know much about politicsPeople don't know much about candidatesPeople are indifferent to politics

- But everyone still has a vote

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Our approachWhat we need is a healthy vote-monitor loop

For the electoral system to work, assessment of existing members isimportantEligible members should be elected again, others shouldn't

For this, citizens shouldget more engaged to politicsknow more about politics as well as politicians

Yes, we do have government websites for this purpose, however...

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Scanned imagesPersonal information of a candidate

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Unofficial certificationsWebsite of the National Election Commission

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什麼...

(We stop here for everyone's mental health)

We later heard from officials that the National Assembly info system was made for members, not the public13 / 27

Three strategies1. Improve existing tools2. Deliver to people3. Open the communication channel btw Citizens and Assembly

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1 Improve existing tools

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Politics in Korea http://en.pokr.kr

We need better information sourcesAim to

1. Aggregate dissipitated informationBefore: If two members' names were the same, info was mixedAssign ID for politicians

2. Show political timelines of membersGather the whole range of data (not just the current Assembly)

3. Pursuit machine readable formats, better technological approaches4. User participation in development process

http://github.com/teampopong, http://teampopong.uservoice.com5. Automate everything

Fun facts on Korean names

Most peoples' names are three syllables20% are Kims, 20% Lees, 10% are ParksNormally among 300 members of Assembly, 1-3 pairs of people with the same exist

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Politics in Korea http://en.pokr.kr

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Home  >  Person  >  Kim, Jae­Yeon

 

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Birthday Oct 30, 1980

Party Tonghabjinbo Party19th  Tonghabjinbo Party18th  Minjunodong Party

Education 한국외국어대학교 러시아어학과 졸업

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Tonghabjinbo Party

Kim, Jae­Yeon

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Citizens' disscussions using Politics in Korea

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2 Deliver to people

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@pokrbot http://twitter.com/pokrbot

Don't let the people come to the data, let the data go to the peoplePublish Tweet for every new bill proposed (approx. 25 per day)Mention proposers' Twitter IDs along with the bill

Members themselves get interested in the servicePeople can use the existing Twitter platform to reach out to members

IssuesWhat about bill update frequencies?Too many Tweets, irrelevant Tweets make people frustratedPeople want to get info on bills that directly affect them

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My page Accessible after login (in Korean)

Follow politicians/bills, up/down vote bills, favorite statementsA work in progress

Weekly, yearly report cards digest emails planned

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APIs & data downloads http://data.popong.com

Why have this data to ourselves?Everyone in has different characteristics, perspectives

People want to make apps of his/her ownNo official legislative API in South Korea

Lead the goverment by exampleIf anyone opens API & data to the public, many political services will rise

"... so that civil society can spend less time transforming data and more timeapplying it to the problems they face" -- Popolo project

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3 Open the communication

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The communication loop

The left loop and the right loop reinforce each otherex: As if when you get know math well, math becomes more interesting,you want to know more, you study more math, get better, like math evenmore, ...

Citizens'knowledge & attention

to politics

Successful communicationbtw citizens & Assembly

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Members and the Citizens

Currently, Politics in Korea focuses on effectively conveying informationWe use existing platforms to link the two (ex: Twitter)

As the public knowledge and interest grows, they tend to speak out moreNeed a more efficient, effective communication platformFor the citizens to deliver thoughts to membersFor the members to better understand citizens

A very slow work in process, a long time plan

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謝謝 :D

http://facebook.com/teampoponghttp://twitter.com/teampopong

contact@popong.com

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