Technology
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KAIST, ICU Agree to Merge
KAIST and the Information and Communications University, a state-run institution, decided to merge as they signed a memorandum of understanding for unification at the Westin Chosun Hotel in Seoul on May 23.
The MOU signing ceremony was attended by representatives of the two universities and related high-ranking government officials from the Ministry of Knowledge Economy and the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology.
Under the agreement, the two universities will form a joint committee to complete the merger process by the end of this year. According to the MOU, ICU will become the "IT Convergence Campus" (ICC) which will include KAIST"s IT related departments and research institutes. The projected ICC will be headed by a KAIST vice president, KAIST authorities said.
With the merger, the number of KAIST students in the IT area will increase to 2,850 from 1,951, while the number of IT-related faculty members will rise to 157 from 99.
ICU was established in 1997 by the Korean Ministry of Information and Communication, the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute, and some major Korean IT companies. Located in Daedeok Science Town in Daejeon where KAIST is also situated, ICU started as a graduate school and added the undergraduate course in 2002. It currently has a total enrollment of 1,121 students -- 481undergraduate students, 324 graduate students and 316 doctorate students.
KAIST said that it will treat ICU professors and staff equally after the merger. This year, the two universities will separately conduct freshmen recruitment procedures for 2009, but will then unify recruitment.
The unification of the two institutions is expected to give KAIST the competitive edge through a larger faculty, student body, and expanded facilities.
The agreement put an end to extended negotiations for merger which started in July 2006. The talk of merging the two universities surfaced when the Board of Audit and Inspection concluded that the government"s direct financial support for ICU was unlawful as ICU was established as a private school. When ICU was established in 1997, the Ministry of Information and Communication provided 200 billion won as the basic endowment and has continually provided 10 billion won in operating funds each year.
2008.05.22 View 15258 -
International Science Journal Spotlights Korean Biotechnology
Biotechnology Journal published by German-based Wiley-VCH, one of the world"s major scientific and technical publishers, devoted its entire special edition for May to biotechnology in Korea.
The monthly journal"s special issue was planned by KAIST Professor Sang-Yup Lee of the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department who is one of the journal"s two editors-in-chief.
The special issue outlines the current status and future prospect of biotechnology in Korea, and presents five review papers and eight original papers by leading Korean biotech researchers to showcase recent developments in Korean biotechnology. Among these papers, a review by Dr. Byung-Hwan Hyeon and his colleagues describes in detail the Korean biotechnology strategies represented by "Bio-Vision 2016," and another by Dr. Ji-Hyun Kim and his collaborators presents recent progress in microbial genome projects in Korea.
In the editorial of the journal, Prof. Lee said, "Heavy industry and IT industry have been the two drivers of Korean economic growth. Korea is now considering biotechnology as its next generation growth engine."
Underscoring the growing importance of fusion research, he mentioned that integration of biotechnology with information technology and nanotechnology is advancing rapidly in Korea. Another special edition of Biotechnology Journal focusing on these exciting biotech developments in Korea is planned for the future.
2008.05.20 View 15170 -
World Micromachine Summit to Open in Daejeon
The 2008 World Micromachine Summit will be held at Hotel Riviera in Daejeon for a four-day run from April 30, drawing worldwide industrial and academic leaders in the micro-nano-technology (MNT).
Organizers say that 76 delegates and 56 observers from 19 countries and regions will take part in this year"s Micromachine Summit. Prof. Cho Young-ho of the Department of Bio & Brain Engineering of KAIST will play host to the annual event.
Participants will discuss the progress of micro-nano-technology in each country and region development of national policies in this area. The Summit was first organized in 1995 by the Micromachine Center of Japan with representatives from 10 countries participating. They were Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Korea was first invited to the conference in 1999. Since then, Korea has played an active role in promoting technological exchanges among nations and has conducted presentations and discussions on major technological breakthroughs.
During the four-day run, each delegation will outline their country"s policies and strategies and present local features on focused areas including this year"s main theme, "Micromachine towards Technology Convergence Era."
The gathering will offer a valuable opportunity for the participants to exchange and collect information on the current state of the MNT, as well as providing a forum for worldwide networking of leaders in the area.
2008.04.29 View 14168 -
Prof. Sang-Yup Lee Co-Editor-in-Chief of Biotechnology Journal
Prof. Sang-Yup Lee of KAIST"s Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering has been appointed as co-editor-in-chief of Biotechnology Journal published by Wiley-VCH, a German-based leading technical publisher, university authorities said Tuesday, April 15.
Launched in January 2006, Biotechnology Journal has covered biological process, brain ailments, biological medicine, protein design and other applied bio-sciences.
Starting in May, Lee will be responsible for setting and overseeing editorial direction of the journal along with Prof. Alois Jungbauer of Austria.
Professor Lee has been gaining recognition in and outside the country for his research on metabolic engineering. In 2002, he was chosen as one of Asia"s next generation leaders by the World Economic Forum. In 2007, Lee was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world"s largest general scientific society. He is also serving as an editorial member of more than ten international journals including Biotechnology & Bioengineering.
Awards and honors include the First Young Scientist"s Award from the President of Korea, the Scientist of the Month Award from the Korean Ministry of Science and Technology, the Best Patent Award from Korean Intellectual Property Office, the Citation Classic Award from ISI, USA, and the First Elmer Gaden Award (1999 Best Paper Award) from Biotechnology and Bioengineering (John Wiley & Sons, USA) at the ACS National meeting.
2008.04.16 View 14648 -
KAIST Receiving Applications for Intelligent SoC Robot War
KAIST is receiving applications to participate in the 2008 Intelligent SoC Robot War through the annual contest"s homepage at www.socrobotwar.org. Application deadline is May 1.
The annual contest features battles between mechanical robots utilizing System on Chip (SoC) technology. The annual robot competition, which began in 2002, is scheduled for Oct. 15-19 this year at the Indian Hall of Convention & Exhibition Center (COEX) in southern Seoul.
The Intelligent SoC Robot War Contest has two sections, Tank Robot and Taekwon Robot. In the Tank Robot contest, robots in the form of tanks engage in duels with laser beams through visual recognition, wireless communication, and audio recognition. On the other hand, the Taekwon Robot contest is a hand-to-hand fight. The robots had to be capable of defending, recognizing the opponent, and attacking without external control.
Any team consisting of more than two people and under six undergraduate or graduate students are eligible to take part in the competition.
Prior to the contest, preliminary assessments and the final selection will be made between July and September.
2008.04.14 View 14474
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KAIST to Build Branch Campus in New Administrative City
KAIST signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Multifunctional Administrative City Construction Agency and the Korea Land Corporation on March 4 to build a branch campus in the city now under construction to house many government organizations to be relocated from Seoul.
The MOU calls for building a well-facilitated KAIST campus on 310,000 square meters of land within the planned city, about 30 kilometers west of Daejeon. The multifunctional city, named Sejong City, is scheduled to be dedicated in 2014.
The MAC now being built in the Yongi-Gongju area of South Chungcheong Province is geographically in the center of South Korea, and many governmental agencies and major public organizations will move in from 2015.
The KAIST campus is envisioned to be home to a newly established College of Strategy and Policy, a Strategy and Policy Research Center, and an Innovative Technology Research Center. The College of Medical Science currently based in the Daejeon campus will be relocated to the campus. With a research-oriented hospital and a medical engineering research center, KAIST hopes to become a leading institution in disease treatment and medical engineering technologies.
The new campus is also expected to house new KAIST colleges now in the planning stage which will offer interdisciplinary courses such as the College of IT and Contents and the College of Life Sciences. KAIST also seeks to resolve housing shortage problems by building an in-campus village designed to provide international living environment for professors and students on the planned campus
2008.03.18 View 15694 -
Prof. Lee Listed on Marquis Who's Who
Professor Lee Ji-hyun of the Graduate School of Culture Technology at KAIST was registered to Marquis Who"s Who, known as one of the world"s three leading biographical dictionaries.
Prof. Lee"s biography was published in the 25th anniversary edition of "Marquis Who"s Who in the World 2008."
Lee"s research interests are the color and culture, computer-supported collaborative design, creative design, evolutionary systems in design, formal models of design process, representation and reasoning in design and visualization for design information.
Lee has published about 30 papers in science journals and for scholastic conferences. She is also a participating professor at KAIST Institute for Entertainment Engineering. Before joining KAIST in 2007, she was an assistant professor at the Department of Digital Media Design and Graduate School of Computational Design, the National Yunlin University of Science & Technology (NYUST) in Taiwan starting from 2002.
She received her Ph.D. from the School of Architecture (Computational Design) at Carnegie Mellon University in 2002. She graduated from the Department of Housing & Interior Design at Yonsei University in Seoul in 1991 and received her M.S. from the same university in 1993.
2008.02.14 View 17202 -
Intelligent SoC Robot War 2007 Has Finale
Kyung Hee University’s “Sandi2007” and “Triple K” of Korea University of Technology and Education and Chungbuk National University were victorious in the Tank Robot category and the Taekwon Robot categories of the 6th Robot War Contest hosted by Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST).
Boldly entitled “07 Intelligent SoC Robot War”, KAIST hosted its 6th Robot War Contest. In this contest, battles between mechanical robots utilizing System on Chip (SoC) technology are fought. The first Robot War contest was held in 2002. Before the actual contest from October 18th to 21st, preliminary assessments and the final selection was administered in August.
The Intelligent SoC Robot War Contest has two sections called Tank Robot and Taekwon Robot. The Tank Robot contest has robots in the form of tanks duel with laser beams through visual recognition, wireless communication, and audio recognition. On the other hand, the Taekwon Robot contest is a hand-to-hand fight. The robots had to be capable of defending, recognizing the opponent, and attacking without external control.
The 15 teams of the Tank Robot section and the 10 teams of the Taekwon Robot section that passed through the preliminary selections participated in the final battles for 3 days starting on October 18th. The Tank Robot category winner “Sandi2007” showed great ability in visual sensing and the Taekwon Robot category winner “Triple K” had effective arm and leg combinations that eventually led the team to victory.
Kyung Hee University’s “Sandi2007” received 2 million Korean Won as the grand prize along with a special recognition from the Prime Minister, while “Triple K” received 1 million Korean Won with a special recognition from the Secretary of the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy (MOCIE).
The Intelligent SoC Robot War contest was part of the 2007 International Robot Contest (IRC 2007) which was organized by the Center for Robot Industry Promotion (CRIP) and held at Convention & Exhibition Center (COEX) Indian Hall. The individual contests included 8 competitions: Grand Challenge, Robotpiad, Humanoid Robot Contest, Robofest, Intelligent SoC Robot War, FIRA Challenge Cup, Robot Festival, and URC Robot Contest.By KAIST Herald on November, 2007
2007.12.21 View 15489
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KAIST Takes Merging Steps with ICU
Plans to begin the merging of Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and Information and Communications University (ICU) have emerged.
ICU board members and Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) officials held a meeting at Lotte Hotel, Seoul, on November 21st. The two parties agreed upon the merging of KAIST and ICU; and an interim organization to carry out the merging procedures was to be established. In addition, a preliminary road-map was presented during the meeting.
In the event that a company would show a willingness to financially support ICU, the parties agreed to take this path into consideration as well.
Also at this meeting, the resignation of ICU President Huh Unna was accepted by the board members of ICU. President Huh and the executive board have opposed any proposals of unification between the two universities. The president called for an independent ICU in response to MIC’s withdrawal of funding.
On November 27th, ICU Electrical Engineering Professor Hyuck Jae Lee was appointed as ICU president.
The talk of merging the two universities surfaced when the Board of Audit and Inspection concluded that financial support of ICU from the government was illegal as ICU was established under the private school law exempting the institution from governmental support. When ICU was established in 1997, MIC provided 200 billion Korean Won and has continually supported the university financially with 10 billion Korean Won per year.
Both universities have not released official statements regarding the merging of the respective institutions.
ICU has a student body of about 400 undergraduate students and 600 graduate students. On the other hand, KAIST has a student body of around 3000 undergraduate students, 2000 graduate students, and 2000 doctorate students. Both institutions are located in Daejeon, Korea.
Talk of establishing a single-department IT-convergence university where ICU is currently located surfaced as a possible merging-concept by KAIST.
Organizations and groups opposing the unification of the two technology-related institutions are concerned with details of the merger, such as the personnel management of ICU professors. However, analyses demonstrate that the unification will give KAIST the competitive edge through a larger faculty, student body, and increased facilities.
In July, an in-house poll was conducted at ICU and the results showed that 15 percent of graduate school students and undergraduate students were against the merger while 82.6 percent of undergraduate students and 84.8 percent of graduate students were in favor. 88.6 percent of ICU professors supported the unification of the two universities.By KAIST Herald on December, 2007
2007.12.21 View 13776
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S&T Policy Agenda of Major Presidential Candidates
Science and Technology Policy Agenda of Major Presidential Candidates
The KAIST TIMES recently reviewed science and technology policy suggestions made by five major presidential candidates. Below is a summary of the information assembled based on written interviews conducted by The KAIST TIMES, gatherings on science and technology policies, and press conferences.
Chung Dong-young of the United New Democratic Party
The UNDP’s Chung Dong-young presented a vision to join the world’s top seven aerospace leaders in an effort to transform Korea into a science-technology powerhouse.
In order to achieve this goal, he suggested five policy strategies: support research and development of creative, innovative science and technology, ; expand resources for the innovation of science and technology, ; promote academia and business partnerships, ; strengthen infrastructure to innovate scientific and technological fields, ; boost the morale of scientists and engineers, ; and promote the dissemination of scientific culture.
The most noticeable striking part element of his vision is to make add Korea to join the list of the world’s top seven aerospace powerhouses. Chung included the this vision in his 20 key 20 pledges, underscoring his commitment to the aerospace industry. He said that the aerospace industry can produce simultaneous growth of various high-tech industries.
Chung also vowed that he would extensively foster high-value added assembly industry in conjunction with a scheme to nurture parts and material industries.
As detailed action plans to achieve his vision, he cited development of small and medium-sized aircraft carriers and upgrading air control systems as part of the efforts to make Korea as a stronghold of popular aviation of in Northeast Asia. He also revealed plans to embark on a project to explore the Moon and send an unmanned probe there by 2020.
To implement aerospace development plans systematically, he suggested inaugurating the envisioned Korean Aeronautics and Space Administration, modeled after the NASA of the United States and JAXA of Japan.
Lee Myung-bak of the National Grand Party
Presidential candidate Lee pointed out basic sciences and open-source technologies as crucial prerequisites to achieve economic growth. As five implementation strategies to promote the development of these areas, he called for the fostering of more scientific and technological talents; a drastic increase in investment in science and technology; creation of new fusion industries that will serve as future growth engines; promotion of autonomy and creativity; and popularization of science and technology.
He also pledged to carry out two large-scale projects, the creation of “an international scientific-corporate city belt” and the technological development of new renewable energy.
Among them, drawing the largest attention is the creation of an “international scientific-corporate city belt” connecting several technological complexes located in Chungcheong Provinces. The city belt is envisioned to connect the Daedok Innopolis in Daejeon, the proposed Bio-Health Science Technopolis in Osong, Sceintific Industrial Complex in Ochang, and the new administrative town under construction in Yeongi-Gongju. At a lecture hosted by the Science and Technology Forum and the Korean Engineers Club, Lee said that the project has been motivated by the idea of locating research and corporate complexes in close proximity to bring about maximum efficiency of commercializing research results.
Kwon Young-ghil of the Democratic Labor Party
In a written interview with The KAIST TIMES, Kwon summed up his vision for science and technology as shifting from “science-technology for the rich and privileged” to “science and technology to promote public interest and participation.”
As action plans to realize his vision, he suggested increasing investment into public-interest research and development projects and building the necessary infrastructure as well as boosting relevance between science-technology policies and various welfare sectors including environment, health, and medicare. He also wishes to pay greater attention to improving the treatment of young engineers and scientists.
Moon Kook-hyun of the Creative Korea Party
Moon Kook-hyun’s science and technology policy proposals focus on nurturing more experts in the fields of science and technology. As specific action plans to ease the tendency among high-school graduates to shun the fields engineering and science as their majors, he revealed a plan to appoint a Prime Minister with an engineering or scientific background and positively expand social participation of engineering or science graduates.
He also expressed strong commitment to making Korea a technological power house, focusing on convergence of various high-tech industries including BT and IT. He would also build infrastructure to increase cooperation for technological development among large and mid and small-sized companies, and among Korea and many other countries.
Independent Candidate Lee Hoi-chang
Lee Hoi-chang’s vision for science and technology can be highlighted by his strong commitment to greatly increasing R& D investment in this area. He said that the move is aimed at expanding science and technology capital, which will serve as a fundamental infrastructure for corporate activities.
In particular, he said that he would concentrate on fostering eight core technologies based on individual knowledge and creativity: IT, BT, NT, ST, ET (Environment Technology), CT, MT(Marine Technology), and FT (Fusion Technology).
2007.12.17 View 17029
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Cooperation Agreement with Ajou Motor College
Cooperation Agreement with Ajou Motor College
KAIST Graduate School of Automobile Technology to sign a cooperation agreement with Ajou Motor College
KAIST Graduate School of Automobile Technology (GSAT) signed a cooperation agreement with Ajou Motor College (AMC) on July 18th.
Under the agreement, the both schools will share education and research facilities and promote mutual cooperation for joint education and researches.
Lawmaker Geun-Chan Ryu, KAIST Vice President of Budget & Planning Ji-Won Yang, GSAT Dean Suck-Joo Na, AMC Dean Soo-Hoon Lee, etc. attended the ceremony.
2007.07.24 View 15959 -
Ki-Won Lee Receives Best Student Paper Award
Ki-Won Lee Receives Best Student Paper Award
Ki-Won Lee, a doctoral student of Materials Science & Engineering, has received the Best Student Paper Award ‘Motorola Fellowship Award’ at 2007 Electronic Components and Technology Conference (ECTC).
Lee’s paper is about a new bonding process of anisotropic conductive film using ultrasonic wave, which applies ultrasonic wave, instead of thermal compression, at the room temperature to reduce the process time from ten to three seconds.
The recipients of Motorola Fellowship Award are selected by IEEE Components, Packaging and Manufacturing Technology Society, and Motorola awards special scholarship to recipients. The ECTC is the world’s largest yearly conference concerning electronic packaging technologies with more than 1,000 attendees and more than 300 presented papers.
2007.07.02 View 18556