The newly appointed chairman of Korea Information Processing Society (KIPS), Dr. Chung Tai-myung, accredited previous engineers for the prosperity of Korea. Meanwhile, KIPS is now on the IT Leaders' Great Awakening Movement. "Since the late 60's to early 70's, President Park Chung-hee heavily focused on nurturing science. KAIST was established, and the engineers were exempt from being drafted to the army. Six out of ten, as result, dreamt to be engineers. Today, only three out of ten wish to become engineers, and some of them even change their paths to medicine down the road," he said. But the actual concern rather lies in the shortage of highly qualified engineers rather than the decreasing number of engineers.
Sungkunkwan University just selected thirty students to be provided with a full scholarship for the newly built Software Department. "Software is the core of convergence. Dalian, China graduates 6000 software elites every year. In sharp contrast Korea only has 3000 graduates per year," Dr. Chung noted.
About 13,000 members of KIPS, which are mostly professors. The president of KIPS is also a professor at Sungkunkwan University. Dr. Chung, stated that the IT Leaders' Great Awakening Movement is significant to the Society. "Korea is no doubt an IT-strength country, however, we are behind in SNS and as well as in area of software. Shortage of software manpower and as well as the highly qualified engineers; who are we to blame, but only ourselves," Dr. Chung explained as he shared the motive of the campaign.
Since day one of his appointment, Dr. Chung has been refining the true meaning of globalization by emphasizing the importance of culture and communication rather than the fluency of English, and he has been organizing more meetings for every member to take an interest in participating. "It is essential for the educators to interact with the other scholars. Here, the Society needs to be the leader of the universities. The most important thing in the Society, therefore, is the gathering of people. So instead of making the Society board member-oriented, it is our vision to make sure everyone takes a part in our Society."
Another focus is on the flow of communication. By putting the professor members together in the Society, school newsletters and the local newsletters will be promoted. Currently, KIPS is in search of university reporters to encourage the communication between the members. "This is what is known as Governance 2.0. Cheering, collaboration, and participation are the programs we are to focus heavily on this year," shared Dr.Chung.
Finding a good IT-person is as hard as mining a diamond. However, with the awakening movement of the nation's top IT leaders, the society hopes to overcome the lag in the software industry. The captain, Chung Tai-myung has miles to go before he travels with his 13,000 companions.
