KAIST

Thank you Phil, colleagues, speakers, and participants.

We are coming to the end of this very productive summit. It has been a truly inspiring three days.

As a popular song says, “Turn out the lights~ The party is over!” But, you know, there is another song that says “The show must go on.”

Yes, the show must go on because of the challenges and opportunities presented to us by the looming the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

On behalf of KAIST, I sincerely thank each and every participant for their contribution to making this summit a resounding success. All the speakers, panelists, moderators, honored guests, sponsors, and the THE teams who made this summit so special, my hat’s off to you.

Let’s give a big hand for all the people who made this summit unbelievably exciting. Thank you very much.

Without the dedication and passion of our student volunteers, faculty, and staff members, this event wouldn’t have been possible. Especially, I would like to thank Associate Vice President Jae-Hyung Lee of the International Office, team leader Eun-Jae Lee, and his staff for their year-long dedication to organizing this summit. Would you all please stand up? They worked tirelessly and deserve a big round of applause.

Dear participants and colleagues,

During the past three days, we have managed to discuss and debate a wide range of issues regarding the changing role of universities in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

One clear message is that the expected role of universities will become much broader and more diverse and its impact will be measured by a variety of factors.

In that sense, THE should be commended for having taken an important first step and assessing universities’ impact from diverse and nontraditional angles. More importantly, they have brought great awareness to these issues and made universities think more deeply and broadly about them.

The second message, I think, is that the Fourth Industrial Revolution, fueled by developments in AI, will clearly have a profound effect on universities, from teaching to research, from its operations to strategic planning. This was also reflected in the Microsoft CTO’s survey results as well as in the multiple sessions that addressed educational issues and challenges.

The third message is that in this new era, collaborations will be a key to achieving success and making a strong and lasting impact. This goes for universities, governments, and industries, as we discussed in today’s final panel discussion, as well as between different research disciplines, different institutions, and different individual researchers.

Finally, the fourth message concerns ethics and social responsibility. As we collect and use more data, data privacy is emerging as an important issue. Also, AI technologies should not be used for the purpose of harming mankind, such as making weapons of mass destruction. There has to be a healthy and cautious balance between technology push and social responsibility pull.

We, human beings, should pursue symbiosis with AI and AI robots. In this context, it is clear that innovations are key to all our countries in the coming years and universities will remain as the keystones of innovation.

Well, now it is time to close my final speech. It has been a great honor and privilege to host this summit as the president of KAIST. Thank you very much for all the support you have given us.

I wish you a pleasant journey home and look forward to meeting you again in the near future.

Thank you very much.

April 4, 2019

Sung-Chul Shin
President of KAIST