피스코드 PeaceCode.net

Building digital public squares for civic dialogue and action.
Public-interest technology and digital commons for peaceful lives and a peaceful world.

Beyond openness and connection, accumulation and automation—through technologies of trust and cooperation, of sharing and liberation—I build platforms and collectives that help good people and citizens contribute to democracy, the commons, and peace. My hope is that free and joyful individuals, trusting and cooperating with one another, can build abundant and sustainable communities, and live peaceful lives in a peaceful world.

I currently work at Parti Cooperative and Code for Korea.

Current Roles

– Chair, Parti Cooperative (2015–present)
– Organizer, Code for Korea (2020–present)
– Member, AI Democracy Division, Presidential Council on National Artificial Intelligence Strategy
– Advisor on Social and Solidarity Economy, Ministry of the Interior and Safety of Korea

Biography

KWEON, Ohyeon has spent two decades building digital public squares in Korea—platforms, solutions, and communities where citizens dialogue, deliberate, and act together.

In the 2000s, as a product manager and engineering lead at Daum Communications, he helped build Agora, the largest online public square of its era in Korea, which became the backbone of citizen mobilization during the 2008 candlelight protests. He also led development for Tistory and Daum View (Bloggernews), shaping the foundations of Korea’s citizen media ecosystem.

In 2012, he built Ansim Hospital (later renamed Ansim-i), one of Korea’s first civic hacking projects. In 2013, he founded UFOfactory, a social enterprise that partnered with over 1,200 nonprofit organizations to build their digital infrastructure. UFOfactory later merged with Slowalk, where he served as CEO and incubated Stibee, now Korea’s leading nonprofit email platform.

In 2015, he founded Parti, a social cooperative dedicated to digital democracy. Parti is a digital agora for civic dialogue and action—a public square for the digital age, owned and governed by its citizen members. It brings together campaigns, deliberation, fact-checking, public-interest data, and citizen membership in one connected ecosystem of platforms.

Parti’s platforms work together as the architecture of this digital agora—spaces to gather, tools to dialogue, channels to act, and mechanisms to decide together:

• Campaigns.do, Korea’s leading platform for citizen campaigning, fact-checking, and collective action
• Mixon, an appropriate-technology platform that lets nonprofits, cooperatives, and community organizations build their own participatory spaces without code
• DemosX, a citizen-government collaboration platform that powers Democracy Seoul, Gwanghwamun 1st Avenue, and the Presidential Committee for National Unity’s public engagement platform
• Galaxy Vote, Star Talk and Korea Talks, Parti’s independently developed dialogue tools that visualize opinion landscapes and match citizens with differing views for one-to-one dialogue
• Townhall, a large-scale online voting and deliberation platform used for participatory budgeting and citizen assemblies

In 2019, he was among the co-organizers of Facing the Ocean (FTO), a civic tech network connecting hackers and activists across Korea, Taiwan, and Japan. In 2020, as an organizer at Code for Korea, he proposed and led the Mask App and Personal Safety Number projects—Korea’s most internationally recognized civic tech responses to COVID-19. He has also served as co-chair of the FactCheck.net Foundation (2021–2023), Korea’s first crowdsourced fact-checking platform, and as CPO of alookso.

Today, he serves on Korea’s Presidential Council on National Artificial Intelligence Strategy as a member of its AI Democracy Division, and as an advisor to the Ministry of the Interior and Safety on social and solidarity economy. Both Parti Cooperative and Kweon himself have received Presidential Commendations from the Government of Korea — Kweon in 2021 for civic technology contributions during the COVID-19 response, and Parti in 2026 for advancing digital civic infrastructure.

Across every chapter of his work, one conviction has remained constant: that the digital public square should belong to citizens — not to vendors or governments. That is what he has built, and what he continues to build.

Awards & Recognition

• Presidential Commendations
  • 2026 — Presidential Commendation, ICT Service Merit Award (Parti Cooperative)
  • 2021 — Presidential Commendation, Government Performance Evaluation (individual)
• Recent Awards (Parti Cooperative)
  • 2026 — Special Prize, 7th Roh Hoe-chan Award (named after the late progressive politician Roh Hoe-chan, recognizing organizations advancing democratic and social values)
  • 2025 — Public Interest Award, Korean Government Employees’ Union
  • 2025 — Open Data Special Prize, 8th Korea Data Journalism Awards
  • 2025 — Civic Tech Award, Human Technology Awards
  • 2023 — Encouragement Prize, Korea Democracy Awards (Korea Democracy Foundation, commemorating Korea’s democratization movement)
  • 2023 — Outstanding Social Economy Enterprise Award (Korea Social Enterprise Promotion Agency & Amazon Web Services)
  • 2019 — iF Design Award, Service Design Category (Democracy Seoul, Seoul Metropolitan Government’s digital democracy platform)
• Other Recognition
  • 2021 — Outstanding Award, 3rd Korea Social Innovation Changemakers (organized by Korea Western Power, hosted by Korea Council of Social Welfare, supported by Ministry of the Interior and Safety)
  • 2021 — Korean Civil Society Delegate, OGP Global Summit (Seoul)
  • 2018 — Grand Prize, Special Category, Human Technology Awards

Public Service Appointments

• Current
  • Presidential Council on National Artificial Intelligence Strategy, Member, AI Democracy Division
  • Ministry of the Interior and Safety, Advisor, Social and Solidarity Economy Civilian Advisory Group
  • Ministry of the Interior and Safety, Member, Policy Advisory Committee, Civic Innovation Division
  • Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, Member, Policy Advisory Committee (AI subdivision)
  • Korean Association for Policy Studies, Board Member
  • Changbi Foundation for Culture, Board Member
• Former
  • Civilian Member, 3rd Korea Open Government Committee
  • Civilian Member, 1st 2050 Carbon Neutrality Committee (Citizen Participation Division)
  • Civilian Member, 4th Civil Society Development Committee (Presidential Decree)
  • Expert Committee Member, Presidential Committee on Jobs (Social Economy)
  • Member, Government Innovation Promotion Council
  • Member, LH Public Empathy Committee
  • Member, 1st Data-Based Administration Activation Committee
  • Working Member, 4th Public Data Strategy Committee
  • Member, Digital Inclusion Forum
  • Principal (1st & 2nd), AYARF (Asia Young Activist & Researcher Forum)
• Additional Affiliations
  • Board Member, World-Changing Dreams (NGO)
  • Board Member, Korean Society for Journalism and Communication Studies

Career History

• 2015–present | Chair, Parti Cooperative
  • Project Director, Democracy Seoul, Seoul Metropolitan Government 2020–present
  • CPO, alookso (concurrent, 2021)
  • Co-Chair, FactCheck.net Foundation (concurrent, 2021–2023)
• 2020-present | Founder & Organizer, Code for Korea
• 2013–2020 | Founder & CEO, UFOfactory (social enterprise; merged with Slowalk, served as CEO of the merged entity)
• 2011–2012 | Digital Business Development Team, Cheil Worldwide
• 2006–2010 | Product Manager & Engineering Lead, Daum Communications
• 2004–2005 | Software Engineer, Daewoo Information Systems

Interviews & Press

• In English & Japanese
  • “Parti: A Platform Implementing Democracy in the Digital Age in Korea” Nao M. (Code for Japan), note.com (Japanese), January 2026 Written after attending Parti’s 10th anniversary event. Covers Parti’s history, philosophy as a social cooperative, and the long-running collaboration between Parti and Code for Japan.
• In Korean (representative articles)
  • “Parti, the Lab for Digital Democracy: Building a Better Society with Citizens” — Lifein, July 2025 Most recent in-depth interview. Parti’s current identity as a “digital public square for citizens who dialogue and collaborate.”
  • “From Agora to Parti and Cosmos Party: Two Decades of Social Innovation and Democracy Experiments” — Hankyoreh, 2018 Traces the through-line of Korean digital democracy from the 2008 Agora era to Parti and beyond.
  • “The Developer Who Programs a Better World” — Hankook Ilbo, 2018 Profile interview on the philosophy behind the work.
  • “Civic Hackers Quell the Mask Crisis: Code for Korea Wins Social DNA Innovation Award” — iNews24, 2020 Coverage of the Mask App project and Code for Korea’s recognition as a leading civic hacker group during COVID-19.
  • “In 2008 During the Mad Cow Protests, Daum Agora’s Servers Crashed—We Were Frantic” — Hankyoreh, 2015 First-person account of building Korea’s largest online public square and the 2008 candlelight protests.

Key Milestones

• 2020s
  • 2024 Strengthened Parti Solutions: Mixon, Townhall, and the revival of UFOfactory. Developed Parti Citizens services: CitizenPass, Campaigns.do, DemosX, and Data Trust.
  • 2023 Co-organized FTO (Facing the Ocean) Jeju. Slowalk exit.
  • 2022 Parti’s Butter Knife Crew and “Even So, We”; expanded Campaigns.do.
  • 2021 CPO at alookso. OGP Global Summit. Member of the Carbon Neutrality Committee and the Civil Society Development Committee.
  • 2021–2023 Founded FactCheck.net—developed Korea’s first citizen-participatory fact-checking model, platform, and operations.
  • 2020 Parti Citizen Data Lab. Code for Korea: Mask App and Personal Safety Number development.
• 2010s
  • 2019 FTO (Facing the Ocean) Okinawa and Tainan—a gathering of civic hackers from Korea, Taiwan, and Japan.
  • 2019 Founded Parti Social Cooperative; Parti Ltd. donated to and merged into the cooperative.
  • 2017–2019 Lead planner of Democracy Seoul, the Seoul Metropolitan Government’s digital democracy platform. Developed DemosX, a citizen-government collaboration platform model.
  • 2015–2019 After UFOfactory–Slowalk merger, served as CEO; spun off Stibee. Partnered with over 1,200 public-interest institutions in Korea on technology and design solutions for social innovation.
  • 2016 Parti GovCraft prototyping. Civic political platform experiments including “I Need to Know,” “National Assembly TalkTalk,” and Cosmos Party (woojudang).
  • 2015 Founded Parti Ltd. Prototyped democracy platforms including Canoe and Townhall.
  • 2013 Founded UFOfactory—a social enterprise specializing in technology for nonprofits and social innovation.
  • 2012 Code Namu—built Ansim Hospital (later Ansim-i), one of Korea’s first civic hacking projects.
  • 2012 Cheil Worldwide—planned mobile and social advertising platforms.
• 2000s
  • Daum Communications—planning, development, and operations for digital media and community services: Sports, Telzone, Agora, Daum View (Bloggernews), Tistory, and Click (the Daum Media data task force). Practiced agile methodology.
  • Daewoo Information Systems—operated the procurement and sales system for Daewoo Motor Sales; led the procurement domain of the next-generation GWIS project.
  • Democratic Labor Party Busan branch—member of the Electronic Party Committee promoting an internet-based political party. Early sysop of MinJiNe (netizens supporting the Democratic Labor Party). Planned and developed Pangari, a general election response platform. Engaged in citizen politics and digital democracy at the local level.

Contact

• Email: rest515@gmail.com
• Twitter/X: @rest515
• Blog: peacecode.net
• Parti: parti.coop
• Code for Korea: codefor.kr