S. Korea’s leadership in the global display market has notched up the international standing of the nation’s academic circles as well. The International Meeting on Information Display (IMID), an annual symposium for the display industry, held in S. Korea, is now considered to be on a par with the US’s SID Display Week and Japan’s International Display Workshops (IDW). Against this backdrop, The Korea IT Times headed for EXCO Daegu, the venue of the 14th IMID, and interviewed Kim Hyun-jae, Professor of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Yonsei University and Co-Chair of the IMID 2014 Program Committee.
“A decade ago, the display industry had grown over 10% annually. However, since the TV market reached its saturation point, growth in the display industry has stagnated over the past five years. Having said that, S. Korea’s Samsung and LG are spearheading the global display industry at the moment. If the nation’s best endeavors to continuously innovate technology-wise and invest heavily in fundamental technologies and education were made to beat off competition from China, S. Korea would hold fast to its technological hegemony in the future,” said Professor Kim.
“Whether S. Korea can continue to lead the van of the global display industry hinges on its acquisition of key technologies and talent nurturing through education,” Professor Kim emphasized.
He argued that S. Korea should move beyond simply jostling for quantitative growth and sink its teeth into obtaining key technologies, key materials, patents and a new “software-oriented” mindset.
According to Professor Kim, S. Korea is strong in manufacturing but weak in the development of “affective” contents. He urged the nation to scale up its efforts for the development of affective contents.
Above all, Professor Kim underlined the importance of education. “Helping young students develop an interest in the world’s No.1 Korean-made semiconductors and displays through early education will eventually lead to the production of creative, highly-skilled engineers in the future,” he mentioned.
“2014 is a record-breaking year for the IMID in many aspects. The IMID 2014 has attracted more participants than ever before. As of 9:30 a.m. (August 27), the number of registered participants surpassed last year’s. In particular, tutorials and workshops, designed for novices in the display sector, were held on the first day (Aug. 26) of the IMID 2014, drawing in hordes of people - 900 in individual registration and 1,000 in group registration,” Professor Kim said.
Professor Kim also talked about the continued success of Young Scientists Forum, a relatively new program introduced last year. This year’s IMID once again ran Young Scientists Forum since it was a resounding success last year.
Less well-known, rising scientists, whose papers were introduced by prominent scientific journals like Nature and Science, were invited to Young Scientists Forum to help forum participants have a better understanding of industry-wide academic trends.
For the first time, the IMID overtook the SID Display Week in the number of papers submitted.
The IMID 2014, a large-scale display event, jointly organized by the Korea Information Display Society (KIDS) and the US-based Society for Information Display (SID), has basked in the spotlight as the SID’s executive leadership team made an unprecedented visit to this year’s IMID and held major meetings. Their visit to the IMID 2014 was intended to learn the secret of the S. Korean display industry’s success and benchmark against the nation’s latest technologies.
The international profile of S. Korea’s display-related academic circles has also been raised. The IMID, which presented nearly 500 papers last year, received as many as 600 papers this year, beating the SID Display Week for the first time in paper submissions.
Though the IMID is an annual academic event held in S. Korea, few deny that it is a premier international display symposium because intentional experts on various technologies, including curved and flexible display technology, choose the IMID as the focal point for the exchange and sharing of information.
“Fourteen years ago, S. Korea wasn’t the No.1 in the display sector. Numerous Japanese display makers, led by Sony, reigned supreme at that time. S. Korean companies were simply busy playing catch-up with their Japanese counterparts. Lee Jong-deok, Professor of Electrical Engineering at Seoul National University, who was then serving as the first President of the Korea Information Display Society (KIDS), first suggested the idea of holding a professional display conference in the nation. That is how the IMID began,” Professor Kim added.
Since then, the KIDS has been playing a pivotal role in supporting the nation’s display industry. The presidency of the KIDS rotates every year between industry and academia, according to Professor Kim.
To help the nation retain its leadership in the global display market, companies should concentrate on securing fundamental technologies in the mid and long term and the nurturing of creative talent through early education should be pursued to continue staffing global display leaders Samsung and LG by out of the box thinkers.