 The society was founded by Lee Ki-nam, a retired real-estate agent, in 2007, after she had failed to bring hangul to the Tungusic Oroqen of Heilongjiang, China; the Chepang of Nepal; and the Lahu of Chiang Mai, Thailand; she attributed these failures to a reliance on Korean Christian missionaries in those countries, whose primary focus was not linguistics or literacy.As of 2015, the society is chaired by linguistics professor Kim Ju-won of Seoul National University, and its current focus is on countries that send large numbers of people to work in Korea.In 2009 it succeeded in getting the city of Baubau, on Buton Island in Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia, to adopt hangul for the Cia-Cia language.