Team POPONG is a non-partisan voluntary group of engineers in their 20s-30s who are primarily focused on making legislation in South Korea's National Assembly understandable for ordinary citizens. They have developed several tools and strategies to improve access to political information and open communication between citizens and lawmakers, including aggregating dispersed data on politicians and bills into a single website, delivering political tweets to engage citizens, and releasing open APIs and data to encourage other civic applications. Their long-term goal is to establish a healthy feedback loop of informed public knowledge and discussion of political issues.

1. How we open
the National Assembly
in South Korea,
with Technology
Lucy Park @ Team POPONG
Nov 8th, 2014
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2. Abstract This talk consists of two parts.
We introduce how this movement all started, and
what we've done since.
Then, as a tech-centered group mainly formed of
voluntary citizens in their 20-30s, we share some
issues that we have either overcome or are going
through.
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3. Lucy Park http://lucypark.kr, a.k.a. 박은정, echojuliett, e9t
PhDc for data mining
Team POPONG member
- Goal: Lowering barriers of knowledge via technology
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4. Team POPONG http://en.popong.com
Non-partisan
100% part-time
Voluntary group
Started off with students
Most are engineers in their 20-30s
Geographically located in various parts of the world
Primarily 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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5. How we met
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6. How it all started
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7. Politics in South Korea
Atmosphere
There is a national "hate" for politics
Politics was very corrupt in the past
People were arrested for talking freely in 80-90s
At first, friends, families give us a weird stare, when we say we've
made a political service
Elections
1 vote for all 20+ citizens
National Assembly vote every 4 yrs, Presidential vote every 5 yrs
300 members in National Assembly
The vote rate is low, more than half don't know their representative
Fun facts on South Korea
Established in 1948
50M population (2012)
Seoul + satellites: 25M
14-hr difference with EST
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8. What's the problem?
People don't know much about politics
People don't know much about candidates
People are indifferent to politics
- But everyone still has a vote
More fun facts on South Korea
Ethnically homogeneous
97.2% are Hanguk-ins
Linguistically homogeneous
Korean iff Korea
Mobillitically(?) homogeneous
90.1% use Android
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9. Our approach
What we need is a healthy vote-monitor loop
For the electoral system to work, assessment of existing members is
important
Eligible members should be elected again, others shouldn't
For this, people need to
get interested
know more about politics and candidates
Yes, we do have government websites
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10. Scanned images
Personal information of a candidate
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11. Unofficial certifications
Website of the National Election Commission
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13. 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 public
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14. Three strategies
1. Improve existing tools
2. Deliver to people
3. Open the communication channel btw Citizens and Assembly
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15. 1 Improve existing tools
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16. Politics in Korea http://en.pokr.kr
We need better information sources
Information was dissipated
Assembly's legislative information site wasn't made for citizens
What we aimed for
1. Aggregate dissipitated information
Before: If two members' names were the same, info was mixed
Assign ID for politicians
2. Show political timelines of members
Gather the whole range of data (not just the current Assembly)
3. Pursuit machine readable formats, better technological approaches
4. User participation
http://github.com/teampopong, http://teampopong.uservoice.com
5. Automate everything
Fun facts on Korean names
Most peoples' names are three syllables
20% are Kims, 20% Lees, 10% are Parks
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17. Politics in Korea http://en.pokr.kr
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18. Home > Person > Kim, Jae­Yeon
person, bill, party, region (ex: Seon­Mi
Jin, 청년, 무소속, 관악구)
Profile
Birthday Oct 30, 1980
Party Tonghabjinbo Party
19th Tonghabjinbo Party
18th Minjunodong Party
Education 한국외국어대학교 러시아어학과 졸업
Address 서울특별시 도봉구 창동
Work
정당인
Experiences
(전)한국외국어대학교 총학생회장
base region
서울
legislation keywords 
[more]
정보
공무원
급여
근로자
요구
파산
사람
소득
자료
Tonghabjinbo Party
Kim, Jae­Yeon
login feedback Korean / English
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19. Citizens' disscussions using Politics in Korea
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20. 2 Deliver to people
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21. @pokrbot http://twitter.com/pokrbot
Don't let the people come to the data, let the data go to the people
Publish Tweet for every new bill proposed (approx. 25 per day)
Mention members' Twitter IDs
Members get interested in the service
People can use the Twitter platform to reach out to members
Issues
What about bill update frequencies?
Too many Tweets, irrelevant Tweets make people frustrated
People want to get info on bills that directly affect them
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22. My page Accessible after login (in Korean)
A work in progress
Follow politicians/bills, up/down vote bills, favorite statements
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23. 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 own
No official legislative API in South Korea
If anyone opens API & data for public usage, many political services
will rise
Lead the goverment by example
"... so that civil society can spend less time transforming data and more time
applying it to the problems they face" -- Popolo project
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24. 3 Open the communication
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25. The communication loop
Citizens'
knowledge & attention
Successful communication
btw citizens & Assembly members
Currently, Politics in Korea focuses on effectively conveying information
As the public's knowledge and interest grows, they will start speaking out
A very slow process, a long time plan. How to make faster?
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26. 謝謝 :D
http://en.popong.com
http://facebook.com/teampopong
http://twitter.com/teampopong
http://*/teampopong
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