Impressions from Korea

Oct 23-25 I was at the GHRForum 2007 event. One couldn't make a more official and traditional event: personalities, keynote speakers, governmental officials, press, TV and so on. This was an absolute perfect incarnation of the pyramidal collective intelligence world, with its beauty and usual limitations.

My experience has been the one of VIP lunches and diners, hand shaking and card exchange with many many people, interviews, talks one after another. An experience of partial fasting too since most of these prestigious meals were not vegetarian. In 3 days I had 2 salads in my stomach + a few fruits from breakfasts, which was okay. When Korean started to know me better, they took care that I would have something vegetarian which was very kind of them.

One of the core message that I shared with people was about the soon to be expected emergence of community currencies. A country such as Korea shouldn't miss such a step into the future. Many people have picked up on this, I suspect there are going to be interesting feedbacks in the short/middle term.

Oct 26 I gave a conference at the National Assembly of South Korea. Again I talked about the emergence of global collective intelligence and the generalization of community currencies. The public seemed quite impressed and receptive to this idea, it lead to many contacts, card exchange, and other invitations to further conferences. Because Koreans what to be ahead of progress it seems they have a natural capacity and will to detect what are the steps not to miss. The generalization and globalization of community currencies is certainly THE step not to miss in the next 2-5 years. This was my main message, it seems it was well received.

The conference was followed by a diner with corporate and governmental personalities. I sat next to Young-Gil Kim, founder and president of the Handong Global University in Pohang. The next day was supposed to be a resting day for me (I could FINALLY visit some parts of Seoul), but he invited me to give 2 more conferences, including one in his university, 40 minutes by plane away from Seoul. That trip would be shared with Jack Park, a very interesting researcher from SRI working on "knowledge gardens".

So this was my resting day Saturday 27 Oct. 2007 I gave those 2 conferences in 2 different universities:

- at the Sungkyunkwan University, in Seoul, to students and teachers. I met Mr. Seang-Tae Kim who has done many researches in a similar sector. Like me he advocates that wider spaces of consciousness are necessary for playing a bigger game together.
- at the Handong Global University near Pohang. Young-Gil Kim had invited all his close staff of teachers on a Saturday evening to have diner together and listen to what Jack Park and I had to share. I spoke about open money again, and again it provoked quite a feedback from the participants. One of the teachers in economics is even going to be sent to Mexico at our next open money event.

There seems that there is a high potential for collaboration with the Handong Global University which is highly dynamic and connected to the rest of the world. Let's see how this seed wants to grow in the future. I will serve it in the usual way: without pushing anything and letting inspiration voice what the next step should be.

That's it. Now I am waiting for my plane for L.A. at Incheon Airport. This is going to be another world and another week.