business
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KPC4IR Publishes Global Standards Mapping Initiative 2.0
The report highlights South Korea as an early adopter of blockchain in policy and business
The KAIST Policy Center for the 4IR (KPC4IR), one of the nine working groups of the Global Blockchain Business Council (GBBC), published the Global Standards Mapping Initiative (GSMI) 2.0, highlighting Korea as an early adopter of blockchain. The report also offers an overview of how blockchain was adopted through an analysis of policy and business cases of South Korea.
In partnership with 131 institutions, GSMI 2.0 maps, catalogues, and analyzes data from 187 jurisdictions, 479 industry consortia, 38 technical standards, and 389 university courses and degree programs to provide a holistic view of the industry’s global activity.
Among the nine working groups, KAIST is the sole investigator for researching South Korea’s adoption of blockchain for policy and business. It says that in terms of policy and regulations for blockchain as a virtual asset, South Korea amended the Act on Reporting and Using Specific Financial Transaction Information to comply with the Financial Action Task Force’s recommendations.
The report also reviewed South Korea’s blockchain R&D. Seventeen ministries have funded 417 projects to cultivate blockchain inventions since 2015. Significantly, the Ministry of Science and ICT’s Blockchain Convergence Technology Development Program supported 50 projects between 2018 and 2021. Their R&D focused on virtual assets during the initial stage in 2015 and soon shifted its application to various domains, including identification and logistics.
The report noted that the Korea Customs Service was one of the first agencies in the world to introduce blockchain into customs clearance. Through collaborations with the private sector, the Korean government has also created the world’s first blockchain-based vaccination certification services and extended it to a globally integrated decentralized identity system.
Finally, the report states that these South Korean cases highlight three ambiguities in blockchain policies. First, blockchain involves both financial and industrial features. Thus, it needs a new regulatory framework that embraces the two features together.
Second, integrating services on a blockchain platform will bring forth seamless automation of industries across the manufacturing, financial, and public sectors. South Korea, which already has well-proven manufacturing capabilities, is in need of a comprehensive strategy to encompass multiple services on one platform.
Third, the two cases of the government’s adoption of blockchain suggest that innovations in blockchain can be facilitated through effective cooperation among government ministries and agencies regarding particular businesses in the private sector. Consequently, the government’s policy is not simply to invest in virtual assets but also to develop a virtual-physical world woven by blockchain. The new environment demands that South Korea transform its policy stances on blockchain, from specialization to comprehensiveness and cooperation.
Professor So Young Kim who heads the center said, “This report shows the main lessons from South Korea for other countries adopting blockchain. We will continue to work closely with our partners including the World Economic Forum to investigate many other global issues.”
2021.12.21 View 4780 -
KPC4IR Helping to Create Global Standards for Virtual Transactions
KPC4IR will join the task force for the Global Implementation of Travel Rule Standards
The KAIST Policy Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (KPC4IR) will participate in a global initiative to create global standards for virtual asset transactions. As a member of the GI-TRUST (Global Implementation of Travel Rule Standards) task force, the KPC4IR will develop technical standards and relevant policies that support the global implementation of the travel rule for virtual assets in compliance with the recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF).
The FATF is an intergovernmental organization founded in 1989 by the G7 to develop policies to combat money laundering. In June 2019, the FATF extended its Recommendation 16, commonly known as the “travel rule,” to virtual asset services providers (VASPs), requiring both financial institutions and VASPs to aggregate information on the senders and recipients of wire transfers and exchange this information between parties to create a suitable audit trail.
According to the FATF’s recommendation and the G20’s support, jurisdictions, especially G20 member countries, have now applied the travel rule to their respective local laws. Korea also amended the Act on Reporting and Using Specified Financial Transaction Information in March 2020 to include virtual assets in their regulatory scope by March 2022.
The GI-TRUST task force will collaborate with global and local organizations developing travel rule technologies and offer a neutral assessment of proposed solutions. Their activities are aimed at standardizing related authentication protocols and security technologies that help VASPs comply with the travel rule.
The task force will also aid in the pilot testing of travel rule solutions for certain VASPs in Korea. Afterwards, the task force will report on the performance and reliability of the tested travel rule solutions for actual virtual asset transactions, in compliance with the FATF’s guidance.
Besides the KPC4IR, the GI-TRUST task force includes the Global Blockchain Business Council (GBBC), International Digital Asset Exchange Association (IDAXA), and Korea Blockchain Association (KBCA).
Director of the KPC4IR Professor So Young Kim will co-chair the task force. Professor Kim said their approach should be prudential in dealing with the regulations that rely on secure real-name data on top of the opposing governance style of pseudonymization, distribution, and recombination.
She explained, “KAIST has designed the co-evolution of technologies and institutions in conjunction with the global leaders’ groups such as the World Economic Forum and the EC Joint Research Center.”
She expects KAIST’s interdisciplinary, global cooperation to untie the entangled problem between regulations and technologies that obstruct future pathways.
2021.07.30 View 7039 -
KPC4IR Leads the Global Blockchain Standards Via Korea Innovation Studies
The Korea Policy Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (KPC4IR) at KAIST will play a leading role in the Global Standards Mapping Initiative (GSMI) 2.0 as the Chair of Working Group on South Korea at the Global Blockchain Business Council (GBBC). The GBBC, a Swiss-based non-profit consortium, established the GSMI to map blockchain technology ecosystem, established the GSMI to map blockchain and digital asset standards and regulation globally. The initial release of the GSMI mapped data and outputs from ons, 185 jurisdictions, nearly 400 industry groups, and over 30 technical standard-setting entities.
The GSMI Working Group on South Korea is the only group that will investigate the country-level innovation of blockchain and digital asset alongside six Korean blockchain associations: The GSMI Working Group on South Korea is the only group that will investigate the country-level innovation of blockchain and digital asset alongside six Korean blockchain associations: the Korea Blockchain Association, the Korea Society of Blockchain, Blockchain & Law, the Open Blockchain and DID Association, the Korea Blockchain Startup Association, and the Korea Blockchain Industry Promotion Association. Individual members also joined from the Inter-American Development Bank, Blockchain Labs, and GOPAX.
The GSMI Working Group on South Korea, chaired by KAIST, will leverage their experience in blockchain adoption to assist in setting global standards for the ecosystem. The Group will also highlight how South Korea can be a testbed for ITC adoption and open the door to a blockchain-ready world.
GSMI 2.0 is spearheaded by nine working groups chaired by institutions, such as the World Economic Forum and the GBBC, Ernst & Young, HM Revenue and Customs, Accenture, and Hyperledger - Linux Foundation. Each of the Working Groups will be supported by sixteen fellows from eight fellow program partners. KAIST student Yujin Bang is the South Korea Working Group fellow. The GBBC and the WEF already published the first volume of the GSMI in October 2020 in collaboration with world-leading institutions, including KAIST, MIT Media Lab, and Accenture.
Director of the KPC4IR Professor So Young Kim said, “The designation of KAIST is the result of continued collaborations with the WEF. The participation of this working group will help Korea’s global leadership with blockchain standards.”
2021.05.18 View 6136 -
Three Professors Named to Highly Cited Researchers 2020 List
Distinguished Professor Sukbok Chang from the Department of Chemistry, Distinguished Professor Sang-Yup Lee from the Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, and Professor Jiyong Eom from the College of Business were named to Clarivate’s Highly Cited Researchers 2020 list.
Clarivate announced the researchers who rank in the top 1% of citations by field and publication year in the Web of Science citation index. A total of 6,167 researchers from more than 60 countries were listed this year and 37 Korean scholars made the list.
The methodology that determines the “Who’s Who” of influential researchers draws on data and analyses performed by bibliometric experts and data scientists at the Institute for Scientific Information at Clarivate. It also uses the tallies to identify the countries and research institutions where these scientific elite are based. More than 6,000 researchers from 21 fields in the sciences, social sciences, and cross field categories were selected based on the number of highly cited papers they produced over an 11-year period from January 2009 to December 2019.
Professor Chang made the list six years in a row, while Professor Lee made it for four consecutive years, and Professor Eom for the last two years. Professor Chang’s group (http://sbchang.kaist.ac.kr) investigates catalytic hydrocarbon functionalization. Professor Lee (http://mbel.kaist.ac.kr) is a pioneering scholar in the field of metabolic engineering, systems, and synthetic biology. Professor Eom’s (https://kaistceps.quv.kr) research extends to energy and environmental economics and management, energy big data, and green information systems.
2020.11.30 View 7711 -
KAIST Awarded the IPBC R&D Institution Team of the Year
KAIST was awarded the R&D Institution Team of the Year during the annual IPBC (Intellectual Property Business Congress) Asia 2019 held in Tokyo October 28-30. IPBC is a conference dedicated to IP value creation strategies hosted by IAM Media, a world’s leading IP business media platform.
IPBC Asia 2019 recognized the institutions and businesses that employed innovative IP strategies and management to produce the greatest IP value in 11 categories covering automotive, electronics, healthcare and biotechnology, internet and software, R&D institutions, semiconductors, industrials, mobile and telecommunications, Asia IP deals, Asia teams, and Asia individuals. This year, KAIST was recognized as one of the most active patentees in the Asia-Pacific region by significantly increasing its IP value through licensing and tech transfers.
Associate Vice President Kyung Cheol Choi of the Office of University-Industry Cooperation remarked, “We are so delighted to prove the strong research capacity of KAIST. This will help us accomplish our vision of being a leading university that creates global impact.”
2019.12.04 View 6512 -
MoU by KAIST-Seoul-Seocho-gu for the 4th Industrial Revolution
The opening ceremony of the Yangjae R&CD Innovation Hub was held in Seoul on December 5. More than 400 guests came to the ceremony from major institutes and companies that are based in the hub. KAIST President Sung-Chul Shin, the Mayor of Seoul, Won-soon Park, and the Mayor of Seocho-gu, Eun Hee Cho, signed an MoU for Seoul to be the leading city for successfully realizing the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
The three organizations aim to cooperate with one another in various areas, including an economic boost for local job creation, technology development, and the promotion of projects through an industry-academia-institute network and fostering manpower.
Yangjae R&CD is the first facility specializing in and dedicated for Artificial Intelligence, which is the major topic of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
The hub is comprised of enterprises specializing in AI, open co-work spaces, conference rooms, an open networking lounge, and spaces for fostering professional manpower. The hub will recruit additional enterprises and individuals who wish to move in. KAIST, an institute containing professors and researchers in the field of AI, and Modulabs, an organization becoming distinguished in AI research, will be in charge of operating the facility together.
The Yangjae R&CD Innovation Hub will operate a professional training program with participation from KAIST professors, which aims to produce 500 professionals in AI research and development by 2020. It will also provide inexpensive space as well as consultations and venture capital to startup and venture companies. It plans to find and foster 50 innovation companies by 2020.
In particular, the hub will operate a course for new AI business models 24 times over three years.
The hub also offers job consultations, academic conferences, public space for companies residing in the hub, a free GPU cluster server, technical training, seminars, forums, investment attraction, overseas expansion, and one-to-one technical consultations.
The Yangjae R&CD Zone is the place established for the Fourth Industrial Revolution by Seoul. R&CD is a concept combining Research and Development, Connection, Companies, Community, and Culture.
Seoul aims to create the Yangjae Zone as an urban innovation hub for facilitating industry-academia linkage as well as establishing a startup-settlement-growth technical ecosystem.
2017.12.11 View 8088 -
LG's Woo Jong Lee Named the Alumnus of College of Engineering
The College of Engineering at KAIST selected Woo Jong Lee, President and Head of the VC Business Division at LG Electronics Inc., as the 2017 Alumnus of the Year for the College of Engineering.
‘Alumnus of the Year’ is an award given to a distinguished alumnus who has contributed to the development of industrial technology or made outstanding academic achievements.
Lee graduated from KAIST with the master’s degrees in Industrial Engineering. He also worked at Daewoo Motors as an executive member in the development division. He has been a crucial human resource for LG since he joined the company in 2000.
While leading the VC business Division, which was established in 2013, Lee is recognized as a creative engineer as well as a leader in the automotive industry. Focusing on autonomous driving and eco-friendliness, he has been engaged in the production of major projects from the beginning to the end.
Since 2014, outstanding alumni whose achievements have represented KAIST at the highest level have received the award. The first recipient was Tae-Kyung Yoo, an executive at Lumens Co., Ltd., and the second recipient was Jung-Ju Kim, the founder of NXC. In 2016, the award was not given because an appropriate candidate could not be identified.
The award was held in the Industrial Engineering & Management Building (E2) on November 8. Faculty members including the dean of the College of Engineering Jong-Hwan Kim, the vice dean Hyochoong Bang, the head of Industrial & Systems Engineering Taesik Lee, and the dean of the KAIST Academy Tae-Eog Lee attended the ceremony.
After the ceremony, Lee delivered a lecture on ‘Auto-components Business of LG Electronics’ to KAIST students.
2017.11.09 View 7111 -
KAIST AI Academy for LG CNS Employees
The Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering (Graduate School of Knowledge Service Engineering) at KAIST has collaborated with LG CNS to start a full-fledged KAIST AI Academy course after the two-week pilot course for employees of LG CNS, a Korean company specializing in IT services.
Approximately 100 employees participated in the first KAIST AI Academy course held over two weeks from August 24 to September 1. LG CNS is planning to enroll a total of 500 employees in this course by the end of the year.
Artificial intelligence is widely recognized as essential technology in various industries. In that sense, the KAIST AI Academy course was established to reinforce both the AI technology and the business ability of the company. In addition, it aims at leading employees to develop new business using novel technologies. The main contents of this course are as follows: i) discussing AI technology development and its influence on industries; ii) understanding AI technologies and acquiring the major technologies applicable to business; and iii) introducing cases of AI applications and deep learning.
During the course, seven professors with expertise in AI deep learning from the Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering (Graduate School of Knowledge Service Engineering), including Jae-Gil Lee and Jinkyoo Park will be leading the class, including practical on-site educational programs.
Based on the accumulated business experience integrated with the latest AI technology, LG CNS has been making an effort to find new business opportunities to support companies that are hoping to make digital innovations.
The company aims to reinforce the AI capabilities of its employees and is planning to upgrade the course in a sustainable manner. It will also foster outside manpower by expanding the AI education to its clients who pursue manufacturing reinforcement and innovation in digital marketing.
Seong Wook Lee, the Director of the AI and Big Data Business Unit said, “As AI plays an important role in business services, LG CNS decided to open the KAIST AI Academy course to deliver better value to our clients by incorporating our AI-based business cases and KAIST’s up-to-date knowledge.”
2017.09.06 View 6511 -
KAIST and McKinsey Korea Agreed to Cultivate Management Leaders
KAIST and McKinsey Korea signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for the “Joint Research on Innovative Instructional Method to Cultivate Future Management Leaders” on April 8, 2016, at the SUPEX Management Hall of KAIST Management School in Seoul.
Under the MOU, both organizations will cooperate in the following research areas: management strategies to overcome the low growth of Korean economy, instructional methods to foster leaders in the field of business and management, and innovative management systems for business.
President Kang said, “We are pleased to work with McKinsey, a worldwide management consulting firm, to foster leaders in science and business. As we see more demanding challenges of managing and leading science-based businesses today, this alliance is indeed timely and will be very helpful.”
2016.04.15 View 4933 -
KAIST Invites Entrepreneurs and Experts to Participate in a Social Technology Innovation Symposium
The Research Institute for Social Technology and Innovation (RISTI) at KAIST hosted the Social Technology Innovation Symposium on November 4, 2015 in KI building, to which 100 social business entrepreneurs and experts in the field were invited.
Social businesses refer to activities of companies, which strive to resolve social problems such as environmental issues, income inequality, and aging societies while seeking profit at the same time. This is different from companies taking social responsibility and non-profit organization serving the community in that they attempt to solve social problems through a sustainable business model.
Held under the theme of “technology capabilities of companies and social business strategies,” this symposium was the first to gather representatives from social venture companies, medium-sized enterprises, and major companies at one place to share their experiences in a social business and to discuss future tasks.
The symposium was divided into sessions with three different topics ranging from social business strategies using information technology, a social business and its business model, and social business strategies of major companies.
The symposium started with keynote speeches delivered by Professor HongKyu Lee, RISTI, and Professor Hong-Tak Lim, RISTI, who discussed the role of technology in a social business. It was followed by plenary sessions led by CEOs who are running social businesses such as the Sharing and Technologies Incorporated Project, Simwon Technology, Ecojun Company, Underdogs, and the Farming Fund as well as by representatives from a social responsibility section of CJ management team and the social responsibility council of SK. In the future, these talks will serve as a medium to share their experiences in social businesses and to discuss the role of technology in the business. Some talks touched upon topics such as development of platforms for social innovation, social businesses employing disabled workers, and crowd funding for farming.
The Director of RISTI, Professor HongKyu Lee said, “The symposium will be the first to have people from leading companies in social businesses in Korea in one place.” He added, “This will be a great opportunity for anyone to know what will be the future of social businesses, which were created to solve the social problems caused by capitalism.”
The symposium was sponsored by the Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy of Korea.
2015.10.30 View 7436 -
KAIST to Hold a Colloquium on the Internet of Things and Open Stack
With the support of the Ministry of Science, ICT, and Future Planning of Korea, KAIST hosted a colloquium on the Internet of Things (IoT) and Open Stack at the KAIST Research Center for Global Cooperation located in Pangyo. The upcoming event was organized to provide an overview of the technological trends to IT companies and foster their success in the global market.
The colloquium invited numerous field-experts as speakers and discussed the influence of IoT and OpenStack on the small- and medium-sized companies in Korea.
Professor Gwan-Hoo Lee from the American University joined as a speaker and shared his insights of how IoT would change the global business environment. He introduced various business models developed by Microsoft, Intel, Apple, Google, and Cisco and discussed how Korean companies could utilize the existing tools and strategy to succeed in the global market. His talk focused specifically on the importance of overseas partnerships and technology stack analysis.
President Hyun-Jung Jang from the Korean OpenStack Community also gave a speech on global partnership through OpenStack. He discussed the future trends of OpenStack and why companies should invest in the field.
KAIST used the event as an opportunity to provide information to domestic companies that are interested in building partnerships with overseas companies and in developing new IoT and OpenStack technology.
More information about the event can be provided online at www.ictc.or.kr.
2015.09.11 View 4710 -
Professor Jae Kyu Lee Appointed the President of Association for Information Systems
Chair Professor Jae Kyu Lee of KAIST’s College of Business was appointed the President of Association for Information Systems (AIS) on July 1, 2015. Professor Lee will serve a one-year term, which will end in June 2016. With four thousand members researching information systems from 90 different nations, AIS is the largest academic society in the fields of information system and business process engineering.
Professor Lee has proposed his idea of “the Bright Internet” as the official vision of AIS. Employing this vision, AIS will create technology and systems, as well as sponsor international cooperation to solve fundamental issues of the Internet including concerns over hacking and cyber-related crimes.
The extent of damage from cyber-related crimes grows each year. Every day, 56 billion junk emails are sent to computers which are hacked and become “zombie” computers. The social cost of such crimes is estimated to be 400 billion US dollars annually.
Based on "the Bright Internet," AIS will build a preventative Internet security system by adopting ground rules that make attackers responsible for the damages from such crimes. The system will also modify technology and other systems to minimize privacy infringement while maintaining security. Finally, the Bright Internet proposes to adopt an international standard for this security system through collaboration with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).
Professor Lee said, “The vision of the Bright Internet started from an awareness that we needed to resolve issues such as Internet addiction, indiscriminate media exposure, and verbal violence. This vision developed by the experts from all around the world will not only bring a revolution of a reliable Internet platform to a global scale but also reshape the Korean Internet platform.”
2015.07.02 View 6758