SEOUL, KOREA - As a joint sponsor to ‘Joint Korean-German Conference on Future and Technology,’ Merck Korea (Managing Director: Dr. Michael Grund) participates as a chair of the ‘Networks for the Future’ session at Grand Hyatt on October 2.
The conference is organized by the Office of Strategic R&D Planning (OSP), the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Seoul, the Alumni Network Germany-Korea (ADeKo), the Science and Technology Policy Institute (STEPI) and the Korea Institute of Science & Technology Evaluation and Planning (KISTEP). And it is sponsored by Merck with the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).
The event will be attended by Pahk Heui-Jae (President of Office of Strategic R&D Planning), Rolf Mafael (German Ambassador to Korea) and Kim Sun-Uk (Chairperson of ADeKo). Dr. Michael Grund (Managing Director of Merck Korea) will attend conference as a chair of the session 3 ‘Networks for the Future’. This conference will offer a valuable opportunity for lively discussion among international experts on various aspects of future and technology to find out plan for future technology development in Korea through sharing cases of Germany and Korea from university education to future engineering education. Korea and Germany - two global innovation leaders - are among each other’s most important partners when it comes to innovation; both in terms of working together, and in terms of learning from each other. This year’s Joint Korean-German Conference on “Future and Technology” seeked to further promote this mutually beneficial relationship.
“Major tasks for industry-university cooperation are considered to be industry support, education for start-up and employment, and the commercialization of university technologies. The technology transfer to companies in Korea are rather poor compared to other countries. The major reasons of poor technology transfer will be reviewed and activation plans will be discussed. As Germany’s cases, DRESDEN-concept which TU Dresden and 20 internationally renowned partner organizations cooperated intensively, and JEDI(Julich Electric Dipol Moment Investigation) project which is implemented by both JARA(Julich Aachen Research Alliance) partners will be shared at the session. And current status Pangyo Techno Valley which is called as Korean Silicon Valley, and future cooperation with German partners, effort to make synergy with Gwangyo Techno Valley, Ansan Science Valley will be shared to find out network for technology cooperation in Korea” Dr. Grund said.
On conference, 5 sessions are prepared. At the Session 1 (Engineering the future – Research Universities between today and tomorrow / Chari: Dr. Young-Ah Park, President of KISTEP), presidents of four of the most prestigious research universities in Korea and Germany share their vision for the Research University of the future as non-university institutions or industry increasingly conduct research. And the way to encourage our talents to try to make creative ideas work and examples of universities fostered successful start-ups will be shared at the Session 2(From the lab to the work bench – Start-ups and Spin-offs / Chair: Dr. Jong-Guk Song, President of STEPI).
At the Session 3 (Networks for the Future), which Dr. Michael Grund(Managing Director of Merck Korea) participates as the chair of the session, the best practice examples of Germany and Korea to link the participating bodies will be presented, and suggestions to build the networks and strengthen the cooperation will be made. After the presentations, a panel discussion will provide opportunity to share experiences and ideas for networks for the future.
At the Session 4 (Digital Society & Big Data / Chair: Dr. Sang-Kyun Cha, Founding Director of Seoul National University Big Data Center & Founder of Transact InMemory, Inc. and SAP Labs Korea and Co-Dev Director of SAP HANA), an evaluation of the situation will be given from a technical perspective and a critical discourse will be initiated from a sociological, philosophical perspective. The problem field of this session therefore covers the available technical possibilities of the digital world and the questions resulting from it regarding the single individual as well as the society as a whole. And German engineering education system with a case example and renovation plan for Korean engineering universities will be reported at the Session 5 (Engineering Education for the Future / Chair: Dr. Dong-Hwa Kum, Vice-Chairman of The National Academy of Engineering of Korea).
The German Korean Alumni Network(ADeKo) is currently worldwide the first Korean Alumni network with members who all studied and graduated with a master’s or doctor’s degree in Germany. Following its motto “Connecting - Strengthening - Advancing”, ADeKo aims at the promotion of the German-Korean relations in the fields of politics, economy, science and technology as well as culture. In addition to that, ADeKo wants to build a bridge between almost 40 alumni and scientific associations and provide support for the concerns of German Korean alumni.
By Anne-Isabelle Degryse-Blateau (info@koreaittimes.com)
