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2010 International Presidential Forum was held successfully.
On October 11th, the 2010 International Presidential Forum on “The Role of the Research University in an S&T Dominated Era: Expectation & Delivery” was held successfully at the Westin Chosun Hotel in Seoul. The third International Presidential Forum to be held, participants of the 2010 Presidential Forum engaged in an in-depth discussion about the direction that research universities should take in the 21st Century.
On its opening, President Nam Pyo Suh delivered a congratulatory message saying, “This forum is a meaningful gathering where research universities will suggest role models and find ways research universities can contribute to the progress of mankind in this century.”
Following, Lee Ki Jun, CEO of the Korean Federation of Science and Technology Societies said, “The common goal of the world’s research universities is to solve the problems mankind is facing together. I believe that the discussion we will hold today at the forum will point to the future direction of research universities.”
“To produce next generation engineers meeting global standards, exchange and dual degree programs between universities must be strengthened,” said Lars Pallesen, President of the Technical University of Denmark. “Research universities must support the exchange between students beyond cultural and national borders to adapt to the global market.”
Ichiro Okura, Vice President of Tokyo Institute of Technology, presented on the “Asian Science and Technology Pioneering Institutes of Research and Education, ASPIRE.” ASPIRE is a community created by the coalition between science and technology universities in the Far East. Its purpose is to contribute to sustainable global growth by educating high-quality human resources and lead Asia’s technology innovation based on science and technology development.
“For research universities to solve today’s global issues, universities must create new ideas by performing fundamental studies and developing innovative technology. The financial resources of universities must be focused with choices based on results,” remarked President Suh.
Zaini Ujang, Vice-President of the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia stated that “the Malaysian government is planning on converting from a ‘labor-intensive economy’ to an ‘innovative leading economy’ with the goal of joining the advanced countries by 2020. In today’s science and technology era where innovative technology is necessary, research universities have an important role of developing the knowledge environmental system to lead the world economy.” Vice-President Ujang then explained what strategies Malaysian research universities devised in the innovative leading economy era to create research universities that bring creativity and innovation.
Tod A. Laursen, President of KUSTAR, said that “KUSTAR has a leading role in bringing science and technology and manpower necessary in converting the oil-centered economy of UAE to a knowledge-based economy. KUSTAR will continuously strengthen international cooperation to become not only the best engineering university in the Arab region but in the world.”
At this year’s forum, thirty international presidents and vice presidents from 24 universities in 15 countries including Georgia Tech, Technical University of Denmark, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, University of Queensland, Tokyo University, Nanyang Technological University, University Teknologi Malaysia and Hong Kong Institute of Science and Technology along with forty national figures such as the presidents of Hanyang University and Handong Global University, governmental bureaucrats and representatives from national business and institutions participated.
2010.10.20 View 16824 -
KAIST Animation 'Captain Banana' To Be Shown at SIGGRAPH Asia 2010
‘Captain Banana,’ a short animation created by researchers of Associate Professor Junyong Noh’s Visual Media Laboratory and current students of the Graduate School of Culture Technology (CT), will be shown at SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 this December 15th to 18th.
Following last year’s screening of ‘Taming the Cat’ at the SIGGRAPH CG Animation Festival in the United States, Professor Noh’s work has been chosen to be shown at global CG animation festivals for two years in a row.
Since the first exhibition by ACM in 1974, SIGGRAPH has become a global computer graphic festival that has a strong influence on the global CG and interactive technology industry. The Asian version of SIGGRAPH, SIGGRAPH Asia has been held annually at Singapore in 2008 and Yokohama, Japan in 2009. This year’s SIGGRAPH Asia will be held at COEX in Seoul from December 15th to 18th.
‘Captain Banana’ is a five minute film about Captain Banana, who explains recent issues over sex including unwanted pregnancies, the eradication of abortions and prevention of AIDS through a series of funny situations with his ten little friends.
“Along with being chosen for screening at global CG animation festivals two years in a row, this year’s selection is significant in that the VM Lab has increased the efficiency of the creating process by using technology we have developed on our own,” said Professor Noh.
The production period took approximate five months with approximately 20 current students of CT and five researchers of the Visual Media Lab.
2010.10.20 View 11353 -
KAIST maintains its No. 1 ranking, Joongang Ilbo, Sep. 27, 2010
Joongang Ilbo, one of the leading daily newspapers in Korea, released the results of its annual survey of universities nationwide. KAIST was nominated the best university in the nation for three consecutive years. For the article, please click the link:
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2926395
2010.09.27 View 9023 -
KAIST was invited to the World Economic Forum's fourth "Summer Davos."
KAIST attended the World Economic Forum’s “Summer Davos Forum” held from September 13 to 15 in Tianjin, China. The Summer Davos Forum hosted various sessions and meetings with international dignitaries from governments, business and public organizations, and academia on the main theme of “Driving Growth through Sustainability.”
On September 14, four subjects including “Electric Vehicles,” “Humanoid Robotics,” “Next Generation of Biomaterials,” and “New Developments in Neuroengineering” were presented by KAIST, followed by discussions with forum participants.
Professor Jae-Seung Jeong of the Bio and Brain Engineering Department, Sang-Yup Lee of the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department, Joon-Ho Oh of the Mechanical Engineering Department, and President Nam-Pyo Suh participated in the forum as presenters of the topic. Of these speakers, Professors Jae-Seung Jeong and Sang-Yup Lee were nominated by the World Economic Forum (WEF) as members of the “Young Global Leader” and “Global Agenda Council on Emerging Technologies,” respectively.
President Suh was also invited to the CEO Insight Group and delivered an opening speech on OLEV (Online Electric Vehicle) and the Mobile Harbor. President Suh plans to sign an MOU for research cooperation with Jong-Hoo Kim of Bell Lab and Shirley Jackson of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the near future, respectively.
Since 2007, the WEF, in charge of the world’s largest international conference called “Davos Forum” has hosted a “Summer Davos Forum,” also called as the “Annual Meeting of New Champions.” The Summer Davos Forum consists of nations, rising global companies, next generation of global leaders, and cities or nations that lead technological innovations. Unlike the annual Davos Forum held in January, the “Annual Meeting of New Champions” is held in September of each year in Tianjin and Dalian, China.
Since 2009, the WEF has added a special session called IdeasLab in the Davos and Summer Davos Forums. Through IdeasLab, prominent universities from all over the world, research organizations, venture businesses, NGOs, and NPOs are invited to exchange and discuss innovative and creative ideas that can contribute to the development of mankind. Until now, universities including INSEAD, EPFL-ETH, MIT, Oxford, Yale, Harvard, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Tsinghua University, and Keio University have been invited to the IdeasLab. KAIST is the first Korean university to attend this session.
2010.09.17 View 20654 -
Times Higher Education World University Ranking 2010-11
Times Higher Education (THE), a weekly British magazine based in London reporting on news and other issues related to higher education, has released the rankings of the world"s best 200 universities on September 16, 2010. KAIST has been placed at 79. Please click the link for detailed rankings.
Times Higher Education World University Ranking 2010-11:
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2010-2011/top-200.html
2010.09.17 View 10262
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QS World University Rankings 2010
QS World University Rankings 2010 was released on September 8, 2010, and KAIST has ranked 79th among the world’s top 100 universities. The Guardian published an article on the Rankings.
“Cambridge ousts Harvard as world"s best university,” September 8, 2010
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/sep/08/cambridge-worlds-best-university-harvard
2010.09.08 View 11677
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Former Minister of Information & Communications Dae-Je Jin donated to KAIST.
From left to right: Yong-Hoo Lee, Dean of Information Science & Technology College, KAIST; Gang-Seok Lee, Vice President of Skylake Incuvest, Inc.; Dae-Je Jin, Former Minister of Information & Communications; Byung-Kyu Choi, Provost of KAIST; and Dae-Joon Joo, Vice President of Planning & Budget, KAIST.
Mr. Dae-Je Jin, who had served as the Minister of Information & Communications, South Korea, gave away about 100,000 USD to KAIST and hoped that his donation would be used for the development of information and technology industry in the nation.
Mr. Jin, widely known as one of the reputable business leaders in the IT industry, was also once the president of Samsung Electronics, a leading global supplier of electronic products and goods. Currently, he runs a private equity investor called, Skylake Incuvest, Inc., which invests and incubates innovative information, communications, and technology companies.
“The real growth engine for our nation to become an economic powerhouse on a global stage has been the highly trained people who shore up our industry. Universities including KAIST have played an excellent role in providing our nation with such outstanding researchers and engineers. I will continue to support for KAIST"s mission as a leading research university in science and technology in Korea and the world,” said Mr. Jin.
KAIST said that his donation would be used for the support of its IT researches.
2010.08.27 View 11628 -
South Koreans Develop High-Performance Software Router.
HPC Wire, covering news on computing software, hardware, networking, storage, tools and applications, published an article on the development of high-performance router by a KAIST research team.
The research team consisted of the Departments of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, KAIST, presented PacketShader, a high-performance software router framework for general packet processing with Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) acceleration. PacketShader, the research team said, that exploits the massively-parallel processing power of GPU to address the CPU bottleneck in current software routers.
For the article, please click the link: http://www.hpcwire.com/news/South-Koreans-Develop-High-Performance-Software-Router-101401434.html
2010.08.25 View 11051
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KAIST hosts training program for Indian MBA students
The College of Business of KAIST held an academic exchange program, inviting MBA students from the Indian Institute of Management. 65 students from India visited Korea and would have a two-week training course including field trips to various companies in the nation. For details, please click the link of Arirang News broadcasted on August 19, 2010.
http://www.arirang.co.kr/News/News_View.asp?nseq=106066&code=Ne2&category=2
2010.08.20 View 9920
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An internationally renowned academic journal published the research result produced by a KAST research team on its cover.
Fc DAAP VEGF-Trap
Photograph showing the gross features of tumor growth along the mesentery-intestinal border. T: tumor. Scale bars represent 5 mm.
Professor Gou-Young Koh of the Biological Sciences Department, KAIST, and his research team published their research result in Cancer Cell, a peer-review scientific journal, as a cover article dated August 17, 2010. It is the first time for the journal to pick up a paper written by a Korean research team and publish it as the cover.
It has been known that a vascular growth factor (VEGF) is closely related to the growth of a tumor. The research team recently discovered that in addition to VEGF, another growth factor, angiopoietin-2 (Ang2), is also engaged with the increase of tumors.
Professor Koh said, “VEGF and the angiopoietins play critical roles in tumor progression and metastasis, and a single inhibitor targeting both factors have not been available.”
The team led by Professor Koh has developed a double anti-angiogenic protein (DAAP) that can simultaneously bind VEGF-A and the angiopoietins and block their actions.
Professor Koh said in his paper, “DAAP is a highly effective molecule for regressing tumor angiogenesis and metastasis in implanted and spontaneous solid tumor; it can also effectively reduce ascites formation and vascular leakage in an ovarian carcinoma model. Thus, simultaneous blockade of VEGF-A and angiopoietins with DAAP is an effective therapeutic strategy for blocking tumor angiogenesis, metastasis, and vascular leakage.”
So far, cancer patients have received Avastin, anticancer drug, to inhibit VEGF, but the drug has not successfully restrained the growth of cancer tumors and brought to some of the patients with serious side effects instead.
Professor Koh said, “DAAP will be very effective to control the expansion of tumor growth factors, which will open up a new possibility for the development of more helpful cancer medicine with low side effects.”
2010.08.20 View 12761 -
Nature Photonics, a peer-reviewed scientific journal, released a paper written by a KAIST research team on the time-of-flight measurement.
Professor Seung-Woo Kim of the Mechanical Engineering Department, KAIST, and his research team published the result of their study on the measurement of 1 nanometer (nm) precision.
“The time-of-flight of light pulses has long been used as a direct measure of distance, but state-of-the-art measurement precision using conventional light pulses or microwaves peaks at only several hundreds of micrometers. Here, we improve the time-of-flight precision to the nanometer regime by timing femtosecond pulses through phase-locking control of the pulse repetition rate using the optical cross-correlation technique,” Professor Kim said.
According to the experiment conducted by the research team, “An Allan deviation of 117 nm in measuring a 700m distance in air at a sampling rate of 5 millisecond (ms) once the pulse repetition is phased-locked, which reduces to 7 nm as the averaging time increases to 1 second (s).”
When measuring an object located in a far distance, a laser beam is projected to the object, and the reflected light is analyzed; the light is then converted into an electric signal to calculate the distance. In so doing, Professor Kim said, the conventional method of measurement creates at least 1 mm of deviation.
He argues, “This enhanced capability is maintained at long range without periodic ambiguity, and is well suited to lidar applications. This method could also be applied to future space missions involving formation-flying satellites for synthetic aperture imaging and remote experiments related to general relativity theory."
Nature Photonics published the article online on August 8, 2010.
2010.08.18 View 12511 -
A graduating student speaks about "hope" for many disabled people who dare to have a dream of becoming a scientist.
Dong-Won Kim, a graduate student of the Mechanical Engineering Department, KAIST, will leave for the US at the end of this month to further pursue his advanced degree at University of Michigan (UM) in Ann Harbor. He has completed his master’s program at KAIST this summer, specializing in rehabilitation engineering.
Mr. Kim was born with cerebral palsy, which made him difficult to talk and use his hands. Notwithstanding the obstacles, he went through the regular school system and earned a master’s degree offered by one of the toughest universities in Korea.
When asked about what was the most difficult thing to study, he said with a gentle smile that “other than taking him a longer time to solve a math problem because of his weak hand muscle, he doesn’t have any difficulties.”
“Of course, people around me helped me a lot, but I tried to maintain my confidence in me and did my best so as not to disappoint my family and friends who have supported me,” Mr. Kim added.
Professor Pyung-Hoon Chang of the Mechanical Engineering Department, who was an adviser to Mr. Kim, recalled,
“Dong-Won has been a great student; I was quite impressed with his intellectual vigor and academic passion. He got along well with his peer students and had always positive and can-do attitude. I’m really pleased to see him graduate, given the tough situation he’s been in. He sets an inspiring role model who overcame difficulties and achieved great accomplishments.”
Mr. Kim hopes that universities including KAIST improve their educational environment to adopt friendlier policies toward the people with disabilities so that more of them can be offered an opportunity to become a scientist or engineer.
He will study medical engineering at University of Michigan—through his doctoral study, he wishes to identify causes and improvements of disabilities suffered by people and become an expert in rehabilitation.
Mr. Kim also donated 1 million won to KAIST out of his appreciation for the support he had received during his stay at the school. He said, “Although this is a small amount, I’d like to “thank you” for the members of KAIST community including its faculty and staff who have encouraged me to finish the study. If possible, I’d like to make a greater contribution in the future, and to that end, I’ll study harder and try to become the person whom I have planned for.”
Upon hearing about his generosity, President Nam Pyo Suh said, “The gift is so wonderful because it was given to us from one of our students. I wish him great success in his future study and will look forward to having his valuable contributions to our school and the nation.”
2010.08.17 View 11650