Tech+ 2010, Nation’s Largest ‘Knowledge Concert’

Brings together scores of renowned global technology experts from Seoul and abroad

Tech+ 2010: Innovate Korea, dubbed a “Knowledge Concert,” wrapped up a two-day run on Nov. 10 at the Jamsil Indoor Gymnasium in Seoul, attracting approximately 8,000 spectators. The forum, marking its second year, brought together 19 renowned Korean and foreign experts from several fields who each spoke for 20 minutes about his or her own visions of creative inspiration by combining technology with economy, culture and humanistic aspects. About 3,000 spectators stuck around until the end of the forum, listening intently to the speakers’ remarks.
As singer Kim Jang-hoon performed to the tunes of the Clazziquai Band following the sessions, the atmosphere exploded into excitement with hundreds of spectators scrambling up to the podium. Some spectators posted comments about the event via social network services (SNS) such as Twitter.
During the final sessions, globally renowned designer Karim Rashid; German historian and media theoretician Oliver Grau; Videocon Chairman Kim Kwang-ro; NABI Art Center Director Roh Soh-yeong; composer, computer scientist and philosopher Jaron Lanier; KAIST Prof. Jeong Jae-seung; and designer Kim Hyun-sun gave lectures. Even though they had different careers, the speakers concurred on their optimistic prospects that digital technology will change the future of human beings toward the living of more humanistic lives. Based on their perspective, the lecturers gave an insight into what human beings now have to do to make society better in the 10 or 20 years to come.
Wrapping up the forum, Korea Institute for the Advancement of Technology (KIAT) President Kim Yong-geun said, “Tech+ is a forum for challenges.” He pledged to strive for changing the world with a paradigm shift to a creative, open-market through a combination of technology, economy, culture, sociology, philosophy, psychology and art.
The KIAT president unveiled the top 10 Tech+ suggestions for public action extricated during the Tech+ Forum from 285 experts from various walks of life during the past one year. Kim said the keys of the direction of future industries will be convergence, open innovation and “green,” and the top-priority task will be nurturing manpower responsible for leading future cultural trends through convergence development projects and exploring new growth engines through industrial convergence.
Hwang Chang-kyu, chief of the Ministry of Knowledge Economy’s R&D Strategy and Planning Corps, delivered a keynote speech at a special session on the first day. He presented Korea’s Industrial Technology Innovation Vision 2020 in which convergence is picked as the new paradigm of the national R&D strategy.
The vision calls for achieving a target of raising the national income to $40,000 and becoming one of the global top-five technology powerhouses by 2020. He stressed that Korea should change its position from a “fast follower” to a “first mover” in order to realize this vision. He revealed the “One” strategy in which the sole technology, product and service in the world can become a trendsetter and suggested nuclear power plants, automobiles, gene analysis and smart TV sets as Korea’s promising industries of the future.
Todd Bradley, executive vice president of HP, forecast the future of the IT Industry. Yves Doz, the author of “Fast Strategy” and a scholar of company innovation and global strategy, lectured on how the industrial structure might change and how companies and governments should take action against it.
Tech+ 2010: Innovate Korea was hosted and organized by the MKE and KIAT under the theme “Innovate Korea: To the Center Stage of the World in the New Era.”
The international forum, being held in conjunction with the G20 Seoul Summit, was designed to raise the general public’s awareness of the exchange and spread of ideas. Innovative leaders from each field shared knowledge and presented new development strategies for the industrial ecosystem, organizers said. It is a knowledge forum for all those seeking creative inspiration by combining technology with economy, culture and humanistic aspects since its inception in 2009.
Tech+, a combination of the initials of technology, economy, culture and human, symbolizes the creation of new ideas going beyond boundaries and transforming the world. The plenary sessions of the forum, held under the concept “Mind-awakening Knowledge Forum,” had five themes ― Eco (ecosystem), Art, Edge, Touch and Insight.
The Eco session dealt with business and a new set of rules. Killer products with strong competitiveness such as smartphones and tablet PCs are coming on the market. Convergence and open innovation are the key factors in forming the new ecosystem and how the future industrial structure should change.
The Art session ― Technology Meets Freedom ― took a look into what a technology corresponding to art levels so that customers can be moved is like. The Edge session ― The Conception of Concept ― discussed how only differentiated products and technology survive the competition. The session introduces leaders who gained their reputations with new ideas that surpassed existing ones. The Touch session dealt with “Innovation with Emotion.” How can technology approach people? How does the desire of humans affect technology? The session will present humans’ attempts to share feelings with technology. The Insight session dealt with many things we encounter, but cannot see. During the session, viewers gained insight from the leaders who have maintained their top positions by finding the factors that everyone else is missing. nw

KIAT President Kim Yong-geun speaks at Tech + 2010: Innovate Korea.

Speakers (from left) are Dennis Hong, robot creator,; globally renowned designer Karim Rashid,; Philippe de Passorio, who spoke about augmented reality,; and Prof. Lee Jae-young, of Handong University, who touched on his university’s example of human resources development on convergence. (below) A scene of Tech+ 2010.