New York City-based think tank Intelligent Community Forum last Friday named the Gangnam District in Seoul, Korea, as the 2008 Intelligent Community of the Year as part of its annual conference held last week at Brooklyn Polytechnic University.

Equivalent to a New York or London borough, Gangnam is one of 25 self-governing districts in the Korean capital. ICF officials cited the extraordinary level of e-government and citizen participation via the Internet and television in the life of the community as the basis for this year's award.

Gangnam is part of the affluent metropolitan area south of the Han River, which bisects Seoul, a city that is home to the fifth highest level of Fortune 500 global companies. The district contains 2.5% of Seoul's population but produces 25% of its gross domestic product. Gangnam started systematic e-government initiatives in 1995, the same year in which only 1% of South Koreans used the Internet.

By 2006, because of a concerted national policy of broadband development working with private wireline and wireless carriers, 28% percent of South Korea's population were subscribers to broadband networks that reached 14 million people, a penetration rate fourth highest globally. Koreans access some of the fastest speeds in the world, with 100 Mbps available for a base rate of about $37 per month.

ICF says the Gangnam district "led the nation in using broadband to make government more transparent, increase citizen participation, and even to help citizens who remained outside the local broadband economy." From a total population of about half a million, "about 350,000 citizens are registered users of the district's Web portal, and 210,000 are subscribers to an e-mail system that asks for their comment on proposed laws and regulations. In 2006, it launched TV GOV, a set of interactive e-government applications running over the familiar medium of the television set."

The New York think tank also cited these impressive statistics in making its award: Gangnam in 2006 collected  $280 million  in taxes online, 15% of the total, and issued 2 million documents to citizens through the Internet or public kiosks. The system has made possible a 25% reduction in the local government's employment since 1995, and Gangnam estimates that it has saved citizens time worth $30 million.