A Platform Nation Institute, which will study how to run the state in line with the changed social and economic environment such as the spread of the platform economy and artificial intelligence (AI), is being launched.
According to the Platform Nation Institute on the 1st, an opening ceremony for the institute will be held at 3 p.m. on the 10th at the Franciscan Education Center in Jeong-dong, Seoul.
The inaugural director will be Kim Yong-jin, a professor in the Department of Business Administration at Sogang University. The event is expected to be attended by figures from politics, government, academia and industry, including Minister of the Interior and Safety Yoon Ho-jung.
The institute was established to study the role and operating methods of a 21st-century state to address new social issues such as the spread of the platform economy and AI, the climate crisis and inequality, and will be mainly joined by the faculty of Sogang University's business school.
It plans to address as key research tasks how to consolidation public assets, data, services and decision-making structures and coordinate them, and in what ways citizens will participate in the process of running the state. It will also study the state operating system and policy coordination, data, AI and platform governance, the distribution of public assets and value, and citizen participation.
Professor Kim said, "We need to discuss not just how much the state will intervene, but how the state should operate in terms of structure and rules," adding, "We will study the relationships among the state, market and citizens and changes in state operating methods, and seek policy alternatives."
The event will also feature a publication ceremony for Platform Nation Theory, authored by Professor Kim. In the book, Kim explains the common background of the climate crisis, inequality and platform monopolies with the concept of "triple privatization." It refers to a phenomenon in which material assets and data assets are concentrated in the hands of a few, and citizens' substantive participation is limited even in major decision-making processes.
Professor Kim proposes a platform nation as an alternative to solve triple privatization. According to him, a platform nation is an integrated operating system that works on three principles—connectivity, openness and citizenship—in which the state provides resources and processes, and citizens and corporations innovate freely on top of them.