I came to Korea as an American Peace Corps Volunteer in the early 1970s, teaching English for two years at Kangwon National University. At that time the state of Korea's telephone service, or lack thereof, was rather dismal. After completing my Ph.D. in Communication at Stanford University I returned to Korea as a Senior Fulbright Scholar in 1985-86, teaching in Yonsei University's Mass Communication Department. By that time the 1988 Olympics were approaching and revolutionary developments were underway in South Korea's ICT sector. Research on the role of television in the Olympics and later on Korea's telecommunications development led to several publications, including my book entitled The Telecommunications Revolution in Korea (Oxford University Press, 1995). At the time that book was published I was involved in designing and directing a major executive training program for Korea Mobile Telecom (which became SK Telecom) at the University of Colorado in Boulder. In the Fall of 1996 I returned to Korea, and to Fulbright, where I would serve for the next fourteen years as Associate and later Deputy Director of the Korean-American Educational Commission. In recent years I have gotten back in touch with a number of scholars, researchers and policymakers in Korea's ICT sector, most notably Dr. Oh Myung, with whom I co-authored Digital Development in Korea: Building an Information Society. My work with him on the book, more than any other single factor, is what motivated me to start this blog in late 2007.
I am currently a Visiting Professor in the Graduate School of Science and Technology Policy at KAIST. Readers interested in further detail may wish to consult my personal web site, www.jamesflarson.com.