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KAIST to be Nominated as the Top 100 Innovators
A total of 7 South Korean universities, research institutes, and corporates, including KAIST, POSTECH, and Korean Research Institute of Chemical Technology, have been selected as the 2012 Top 100 Global Innovative Organizations.
In particular, universities were part of the list for the first time in 2012, with two South Korean universities, KAIST and POSTECH, being the only entities representing their category.
Thomson Reuters, the world"s leading media and financial-data firm, has announced a report entitled "2012 Thomson Reuters Top 100 Global Innovative Organizations", which includes KAIST and 6 other South Korean institutes, corporates, and universities.
Thomson Reuters has been publishing an annual report since last year that selects the Top 100 Global Innovative Organizations by analyzing quantitative and qualitative data through original methods and criteria such as ▲the ratio of published patent applications to granted patents, ▲the number of innovative patents that have quadrilateral patents in their patent families, ▲the number of citations to each organizations" patents, excluding self-citations, and ▲the generation of a sizable amount of innovation.
According to the most recent report, 47 American corporates and 21 European corporates have been selected as the Top 100 Global Innovative Organizations. Japan was the leading nation in the continent of Asia with 25 listed corporates, while 7 corporates, research institutes, and universities, including KAIST, have been selected from South Korea.
Besides, POSTECH, Korea Research Institute of Science and Technology, Korea Electronics Technology Institute, LSIS, LG Electronics, and Samsung Electronics were the 6 other South Korean organizations that are included in the list.
Doo Won-soo, chief of Public Relations Department of KAIST, said "Thomson Reuter"s selection of innovative organizations demonstrates that KAIST is an organization that puts great efforts for the development of advanced technologies and innovative research," also reminding that KAIST earned the 5th position by World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), an agency of the United Nations, among universities worldwide with applications for international patents.
Meanwhile, Thomson Reuters is the world"s leading media and financial-data firm that offers valuable intelligent information to CEO"s and experts in the vast fields of finance, banking, legislation, taxation, accounting, intellectual properties, science, and media.
Reports from Thomson Reuters are also accounted in the assessment of Times Higher Educations (THE), the British organization for world university rankings. The head office of Thomson Reuters is currently in New York, USA, with a total of 60,000 employees working overseas.
2012.12.21 View 8423 -
KAIST International Students Organize KAIST ONE Program
International Students at KAIST are running a program called “KAIST ONE” (Overseas Networking Exchange) in order to promote an active exchange between students and to present their cultures.
Originally an international cultural activity at the ICU (then the Information and Communications University) in 2007, the program changed its name to “KAIST ONE” and was continued after the merging of the university with KAIST. Students of about 40 different countries have participated to date, and each annual event attracts more than 150 students.
Over 700 international students from 70 different countries around the world spontaneously organize and manage the KAIST ONE program, which is run five times this semester, every other Thursday from 7p.m. to 9p.m. at the KAIST International Center.
The 11th of last month and the 1st of this month witnessed an enthusiastic response from about 150 participants who joined the Columbian and the Saudi Arabian students in introducing their cultures, presenting traditional cultural performances, and sharing traditional foods.
The next in line are Danish, Ugandan, and Cameroonian students who are set to have their turns on this month’s 15th, 29th, and next month’s 6th, respectively.
Also notable is the active attention and support from foreign embassies such as the participation of Tunisian, Brazilian, Pakistani, Azerbaijani, Thai, and German ambassadors in the program since last year to provide food and introductory guides to cultures.
The director of this year’s program, Karim Charfi (Tunisian, 3rd year Electrical Engineering) said, “During the selection stage of each semester, everyone competes for the chance to present their country,” and “KAIST ONE has established itself as a unique and exotic cultural event at KAIST since it networks about 40 of the relatively less known countries such as Uganda, Cameroon, Tunisia, and Chile and the people with diverse cultures.”
The supervisor of the program, Chang Dong Yoo of the Office of Special Projects and Institutional Relations said, “KAIST ONE is an opportunity for international students to acquaint people with their cultures, and it is also a site of cultural exchange and of building friendships among KAIST students and international students,” and “we plan to extend the event such that not only the KAIST members but also the local residents can join in.”
The program welcomes KAIST students as well as the general public.
2012.12.21 View 7338
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Professor Hwang Gyu Young Elected as Chairman of IEEE TCDE.
Professor Hwang Gyu Young (Department of Computer Science) was elected as the Chairman of IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) TCDE (Technical Committee on Data Engineering).
IEEE TCDE is one of the three academic organizations (including VLDB Endowment, ACM SIGMOD) and Professor Hwang is the first to be elected as Chairman from the Asia-Pacific region.
Professor Hwang’s tenure begins on New Year’s Day for two years.
IEEE TCDE holds the world’s most prestigious academic competition IEEE ICDE and hosts the Working Group and publishes the IEEE Data Engineering Bulletin.
2012.12.21 View 8581
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Ph.D. students Hyowon Park and Won Ma receive Grand Prizes in Mathematics and Biology respectively.
Researchers in KAIST received best paper awards in two out of three fields at this year’s award ceremony for the “Second Annual Best Thesis Paper Award” held collectively by the Korea University Presidents’ Federation (with Chairman DaeSoon Lee) and the Korean Academy of Science and Technology (with Director GilSang Jung).
Two researchers from KAIST, Hyowon Park (Department of Mathematics) and Won Ma (Department of Biology) received best paper awards.
This prize, given by the both the Korea University Presidents’ Federation and the Korean Academy of Science and Technology since last year, is awarded to researchers and assistant professors who write the most outstanding thesis papers in the field of basic sciences.
Park, who received the best paper award this year, did research on graph braid groups. He was supervised by Professor Kihyung Ko, who received the best supervisor reward.
Ma, who received the best paper award in the field of biological science, researched about the Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder due to deficiency of the GIT1 synapse protein. His supervising professor also received the supervisor award.
The award ceremony was held in the auditorium of the S-OIL headquarters in Seoul on November 30.
Meanwhile, NASA researcher Jaehwa Lee received the best paper award in the field of earth science, and his supervising professor, Professor Jun Kim from Yonsei University who studies atmospheric science, received the best supervisor award.
2012.12.21 View 9564
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KAIST shocks the world with its creativity
Researchers at KAIST yielded great results at the world’s leading international Human Computer Interaction Society.
Professor Lee Gi Hyuk’s (Department of Computer Sciences) and Professor Bae Seok Hyung’ (Department of Industrial Design) respective teams received awards in two criteria in student innovation contest and was the only domestic university that presented their thesis at the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software.
The ACM UIST holds a student innovation contest prior to its opening. This year’s topic was the pressure sensing multi touch pad of Synaptics and involved 27 prestigious universities including MIT and CMU.
The KAIST team (Ki Son Joon Ph.D. candidate, Son Jeong Min M.A. candidate of Department of Computer Sciences and Woo Soo Jin M.A. candidate of Department of Industrial Design) designed a system that allows modulated control by attaching a simple structure to the pressure sensing multi touch pad.
The second KAIST team (Huh Seong Guk Ph.D. candidate, Han Jae Hyun Ph.D. candidate, Koo Ji Sung Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Computer Sciences, and Choi Ha Yan M.A. candidate at Department of Industrial Design) designed a system that utilizes a highly elastic fiber to allow the sensing of lateral forces. They also created a slingshot game application which was the second most popular system.
In the thesis session Professor Bae’s team (Lee DaWhee Ph.D. candidate, Son Kyung Hee Ph.D. candidate, Lee Joon Hyup M.A. candidate at Department of Industrial Design) presented a thesis that dealt with the technology that innovated the table pen for displays.
The new ‘phantom pen’ solved the issue arising from the hiding effect of the pen’s contact point and the display error due to the thickness of the display. In addition the ‘phantom pen’ has the ability to show the same effects as crayons or markers in a digital environment.
2012.11.29 View 9735
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The control of light at the nano-level
Professor Min Bumki
Professor Min Bumki’s research team from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at KAIST have successfully gained control of the transmittance of light in optical devices using graphene* and artificial 2-dimensional metamaterials**.
* Graphene : a thin membrane composed of pure carbon, with atoms arranged in a regular hexagonal pattern
** Metamaterials : artificial materials engineered to have properties that may not be found in nature
The research results were published in the recent online edition (September 30th) of Nature Materials, a sister journal of the world renowned Nature journal, under the title ‘Terahertz waves with gate-controlled active graphene metamaterials’
Since the discovery of graphene in 2004 by Professors Novoselov and Geim from the University of Manchester (2010 Nobel Prize winners in Physics), it has been dubbed “the dream material” because of its outstanding physical properties.
Graphene has been especially praised for its ability to absorb approximately 2.3% of near infrared and visible rays due to its characteristic electron structure. This property allows graphene to be used as a transparent electrode, which is a vital electrical component used in touch screens and solar batteries. However, graphene’s optical transmittance was largely ignored by researchers due to its limited control using electrical methods and its small optical modulation in data transfer.
Professor Min’s team combined 0.34 nanometer-thick graphene with metamaterials to allow a more effective control of light transmittance and greater optical modulation. This graphene metamaterial can be integrated in to a thin and flexible macromolecule substrate which allows the control of transmittance using electric signals.
This research experimentally showed that graphene metamaterials can not only effective control optical transmittance, but can also be used in graphene optical memory devices using electrical hysteresis.
Professor Min said that “this research allows the effective control of light at the nanometer level” and that “this research will help in the development of microscopic optical modulators or memory disks”.
figure 1. The working drawing of graphene metamaterials
figure 2. Conceptual diagram (Left) and microscopic photo (right) of graphene metamaterials
2012.11.23 View 9920 -
Education 3.0: a change from teaching to learning
On October 16th, educationalists and Presidents from research-oriented universities around the world gathered in Seoul to attend the 2012 International Presidential Forum on Global Research Universities, where KAIST introduced its new smart learning model ‘Education 3.0’.
Smart learning ‘Education 3.0’ allows students to learn from lectures given by renowned scholars through the internet and encouraged student to professor discussion. This technology was created to deal with the ever-changing classroom dynamics due to the advancement of IT technology.‘Education 3.0’ differs from the traditional teaching-based lectures in that it offers a platform for self-directed learning. KAIST is working to spread ‘Education 3.0’ by providing specialized classrooms and running an online learning platform that complements it.
This spring, KAIST adopted ‘Education 3.0’ in 3 courses and received high praise from students (a rating of 4.4 out of 5.0). Hence, the number of courses was extended to 10 this fall.
Through this gathering, KAIST hopes to develop cooperative connections between foreign universities to share learning platforms and contents. On October 16th, KAIST signed a MOU with Denmark’s Danmarks Tekniske Universitet (DTU) to provide a cyber-dual degree program using ‘Education 3.0’. Hence, students studying Web science and Digital Media in either KAIST or DTU can receive degrees from both schools without physically visiting them.
President Suh said that “‘Education 3.0’ provides a new paradigm of learning which moves from the tradition cramming method of teaching to self-directed learning” and that this model will help the globalization of KAIST by initiating global cooperation with foreign universities.
Over 60 Universities from 27 different countries attended the forum, including ULCA and Caltech from the United States, DTU from Denmark, University of Southampton and University of York from England, University of Queensland from Australia, Nanyang Technological University from Singapore and Tokyo Institute of Technology from Japan. Members from Korean Universities such as Hanyang University, Handong Global University, Sogang University and Sookmyung Women"s University also attended.
2012.10.25 View 9613 -
2012 Intellectual Property Rights Award Ceremony Held
The 2012 Intellectual Property Rights Award Ceremony was held at Seoul KAIST Campus.
Recipients of the award included former congressmen Kim Young Sun and Lee Jeong Hyuk, and Kim Boo Kyung researcher at Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute also representing Vooz Ltd. that created the character POOCA.
The Intellectual Property Rights Award is given to an individual or a group that succeeded in utilizing, protecting, creating, and establishment of its foundation including patent, copyright, and brand. Intellectual Property Rights is viewed as of importance for future national competitiveness.
The Award is organized by the Korea Patent Attorneys Association, the Korea Association of Intellectual Property Services, and KAIST and are respectively core institutions in the training of Intellectual Property Rights Experts and the creation, utilization, and the protection of intellectual property.
In addition the Award is also co-organized by the KAIST Graduate School of Intellectual Property Rights (established in cooperation with KAIST and the Korean Intellectual Property Office) and the total 20 million Won of prize money is funded by Korea Institute of Intellectual Strategy and Kim Ok Lan Foundation.
The Award Ceremony was held with a special lecture by the recipients.
It was stressed that the evaluation process was carried out with that the decision is a silent message to the society and is also a type of market signal.
Director Ko Gi Seok (Presidential Council on Intellectual Property) revealed that the candidates’ impact on the strength of national intellectual property rights was thoroughly scrutinized.
In the criteria of Creation of Intellectual Property, ETRI received the award in recognition of the institution’s successful patenting and commercializing of products of Korean R&D.
ETRI created a total of 251 International Patents in cooperation with ITU, ISO, IEE, etc. and also participated in a total of 9 International Standard Patent Pool, showing its active Intellectual Property management.
Such efforts ranked ETRI 1st in the United States Patent Evaluation performed by the US Patent Board in 2011 out of 237 institutions.
In addition Recipient of the Intellectual Property Utilization criteria, VOOZ ltd.’s Kim Boo Kyung promised the free use of their character POOCA in ETRI’s automated Korean-English translator. Researcher Kim Boo Kyung was rewarded with the award in recognition of his contribution to the domestic economy and realization of the commercialization of a copy right through licensing.
Former congressman Kim Young Son received an Award in the Foundation criteria in recognition of his efforts in the establishment of the Presidential Council on Intellectual Property and the Basic Blueprints for the Intellectual Property Law.
Former congressman Lee Jeong Hyuk received the same award in recognition of standardization and streamlining Intellectual Property Rights Policies. His realization and pursuit of the establishment of a balanced growth based on law for the competitiveness of businesses was the driving force behind his accomplishments.
2012.10.16 View 10240
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KAIST Evaluated 1st in Joong Ang Newspaper University Evaluation for 5 Consecutive Years
KAIST was evaluated 1st in the Joong Ang Newspaper University Evaluation scoring 241 points out of a total of 300 points. This is KAIST’s 5th consecutive year being ranked 1st by Joong Ang Newspaper’s University Evaluation.
POSTECH, Yonsei University, Seoul National University, Sungkyunkwan University, and Korea University followed behind.
The Joong Ang Newspaper University Evaluation started in 1994 and KAIST is the first university to be evaluated 1st for 5 consecutive years.
KAIST scored high in education environment, finance, and professor research criteria.
Joong Ang Newspaper evaluated 102 universities and based the evaluation on: education environment (90 points), globalization (50 points), professor research (100 points), and reputation (60 points).
2012.10.16 View 6975
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2012 Times Higher Education Ranks KAIST a Record High of 68th
KAIST was evaluated as the 68th best university by the Times Higher Education, a English University Evaluation Body.
The 2012 evaluation is 29 places higher than the 2011 evaluation.
As a side note, KAIST was ranked a record high of 63rd in the world by Quacquarelli Symonds’ 2012 QS World University Evaluation.
2012.10.16 View 6844
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Distinguished Professor Lee Sang Yeop Appointed as Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers
Professor Lee Sang Yeop (Dean of the Department of Biological Sciences) has become the first Korea Scientist to be appointed as the Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.
The American Institute of Chemical Engineers was founded in 1908 and boasts a 100 year history. It is composed of 43,000 members over 90 countries and is the largest international Academic Institute in the field of Chemical Engineering.
The Institute appoints Fellows after a rigorous procedure of recommendation and evaluation and Professor Lee is the first Korean to become a Fellow.
Professor Lee’s expertise is the field of Metabolic Engineering and successfully applied the system design method and optimization strategy of chemical engineering to biological systems thereby developing numerous core technologies for the biology based chemical industries.
Professor Lee is the founder of the System Metabolic Engineering and enabled the medical application of microorganisms by manipulating the metabolic pathways on a systems level in addition to making great progress in synthesizing various oil originated chemical materials using biology based, environmentally friends methods.
Professor Lee received the Marvin J. Johnson Award, Charles Thom Award, and has been appointed by the first Chairman of the Biotech Global Agenda Counsel of the World Economic Forum.
2012.09.22 View 8341
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KAIST 63rd in 2012 QS World University Ranking
KAIST was ranked 63rd in the 2012 World University Ranking conducted by British University Ranking Institution Quacquarelli Symonds.
The result is an all-time high for KAIST and a quantum leap of 135 places from 198th in 2006.
The criteria are: Student Evaluation (40%), Industry Evaluation (10%), Dissertation Citation per Professor (20%), Professor to Student Ratio (20%), Ratio of Foreign Students (5%), and Professor Ratio (5%).
The most notable improvement was in the ‘Academic Reputation’ criteria where KAIST scored 85.1 points and recorded 68th in the world, an improvement of 17 places from last year.
The Engineering College was ranked 24th, Natural Science College was ranked 48th, Biological Science College was ranked 110th, demonstrating that KAIST has now been established as a world class research oriented university.
The 2012 QS World University Ranking ranked MIT as the best university in the world followed by Cambridge, Harvard, ULC, and Oxford.
Domestically Seoul National University was ranked highest at 37th followed by KAIST (63rd), POSTECH (97th), Yonsei University (112th), Korea University (137th), and Sungkyunkwan University (179th) in the top 200 places.
2012.09.22 View 9086