The New York Times has an article about a national Korean agenda to push robots.

“My personal goal is to put a robot in every home by 2010,” said Oh Sang Rok, manager of the ministry’s intelligent service robot project.

Of course the definition of what constitutes a robot is open, but this is something that should be taken seriously. After all this is the country that has 72% broadband penetration, the result of similar governemental push and societal enthusiasm. Is that goal too ambitious for the U.S.? How about just California? While the big countries like the U.S., China, E.U., and India get most of the attention, smaller countries like Korea, Finland, and Slovenia, to name a few that stand out, are able to navigate the new digital world very quickly, taking advantage of small, well-educated populations to become incubators of new technologies.

There’s some cool thinking mentioned in the article. “While other countries have focused on developing military, industrial or humanoid robots, Mr. Oh said, South Korea decided three years ago to develop service robots that, instead of operating independently, derive their intelligence from being part of a network.”

Developing robots with linked intelligence is a pretty interesting national goal. And judging from what I’ve seen the two times I’ve been to Korea, the excitement is not hype. The wireless and IT conferences I attended not only featured business people and elaborate displays, but generated a kind of teen and hobbyist enthusiasm that only surfaces here in less mainstream venues. The connection from top to bottom is more obvious and that makes for some fertile ground.

The mindset of upgrading your country to be an innovation incubator means that spreading the love, or in this case the wifi, makes sense. In Korea a presentation by a government minister I saw described how they were very concerned with getting social outsiders online (the group interestingly included housewifes, prisoners, and soldiers). Because you never know where innovation will come from, you empower it all around.

Smart, small, and inventive