KAIST

KAIST President Sung-Chul Shin attended the advisory board meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution Global Network (C4IR) on May 8. The meeting took place via video conference due to the outbreak of COVID-19.

Fifteen participants from Asian countries including Korea, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, and Turkey took part in the meeting. Major participants included the board members such as President Shin and other core members of the WEF including Managing Director and Head of the WEF C4IR Murat Sönmez, Head of WEF Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning Kay Firth-Butterfield, and Head of WEF Blockchain and Digital Currency Sheila Warren. President Shin has been serving as Korea’s only member of WEF C4IR Advisory Board since 2018.

In his opening remarks, President Shin emphasized that the COVID-19 crisis will present new opportunities for technical innovation in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, especially with the advancements of ‘untact*’ business.

He then introduced Korea’s use of innovative ICT, bio, and healthcare technology for preventative measures during the COVID-19 epidemic, including the development of rapid diagnosis kits. “The Korea Policy Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (KPC4IR), which was set up in KAIST last December, will also supplement its project plan for this year and incorporate Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies like AI to support the COVID-19 crisis response and strategy development,” President Shin explained.

Participants also discussed main issues for the Fourth Industrial Revolution by core technology category, including AI, data, smart cities, blockchain, and synthetic biology. They shared the major cases and successes of projects in each area that the WEF C4IR has been carrying forward using their global network, followed by a discussion on future plans.

In terms of AI technology innovation, President Shin mentioned KAIST AI researchers who are analyzing the pattern of how COVID-19 spreads in Korea, from which they are developing a model for the global spread of an infectious disease that could be repeated in the future. He said, “To develop an AI-based model for the spread of an infectious disease that can be applied on a global scale, global cooperation is important, and to promote this, the role of the WEF C4IR must be expanded”. The participants strongly agreed with this suggestion.

In the data usage and governance-related discussion, President Shin introduced Korea’s amendment and passage of the ‘Three Data Bills’. He revealed that “based on this legislation, the KPC4IR is preparing measures to promote the usage of the data needed for the development of new technology, services, and products without the invasion of personal information and privacy. The Center is planning to make a proposal to the government and industry for regulatory reform.”

After the presentation on synthetic biology given by Professor Drew Endy from Stanford University, President Shin proposed the possibility of developing a COVID-19 vaccine using synthetic biology technology, and exchanged opinions with the speaker.

The WEF C4IR Advisory Board is led by Chairman Marc R. Benioff, who is the founder and CEO of Salesforce, the global front-runner in the field of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions. President Alice Gast of Imperial College London and Abdullah Al-Swaha, the Saudi Arabian Minister of Information and Communication Technology, are serving as co-chairs. As such, the WEF C4IR is composed of more than 30 representatives from academia, research, industry, governments, and politics around the world.

* “Untact” is a new term coined by combining an English prefix “un”, which expresses the opposite state of an adjective that it precedes, and “tact” borrowed from the word “contact”. The term refers to situations which avoid face-to-face direct contact between people, and is one of the high-trending buzzwords in Korea these days.