Consultants of the 22nd Global Software Contest of Korea for 2010 held a meeting at the Seoul Press Center in downtown Seoul on Sept. 29.
It has been the nation's biggest and first-class SW contest since 1987. Applicants to the contest are those working in the SW field, research and academic circles, and students at middle & high schools and universities.
The Presidential award, the Prime Minister award, the Minister of Knowledge Economy award, and other prizes will be given to excellent works selected from among the entries. Until December 2009, a total of 447 excellent SW products received the prizes.
Ten consultants, including Prof. Park Chan-mo of the National Research Foundation of Korea, who is also the Chairman of the consultation committee, and Prof. Chung Jin-wook of SungKyunkwan University, who also serves as the Chairman of the screening committee, held the second meeting following the first meeting, which took place in May.
The award ceremony will be held at the end of November, after the contestants entries have passing through the screening process in September and October. The committee started to receive applications in May.
Lee Kark-bum, chairman of the Presidential Council on Information Society, serves as the chairman of the 22nd Global Software Contest, which was hosted by the Ministry of Knowledge Economy and jointly organized by National IT Industry Promotion Agency (NIPA) and IPAK.
Cho Sung-kap, chairman of IPAK, said that the purpose of this event is to identify talented developers who will become the Bill Gates' and Steve Jobs' of the future. The contest is also intended to accelerate development of the domestic SW industry through new SW products, develop creative ideas and technology in keeping with the government's green growth and IT convergence policy, create more jobs and promote exports.
Prof. Chung Jin-wook said the first screening process was completed on Sept. 15, the second screening ended on Oct. 15 after tests, and the prizes will be awarded at the ceremony to be held in November after finishing the comprehensive screening ends on Oct. 22. He added, "Different from the previous years, eight works from Yeonbyeon were submitted, and we need to screen the works based on different standards, even though the level of the products is not so high."
Ph. D. Suk Ho-ick, Vice Chairman of KT, stressed the importance of the SW competition and Ph.D. Kim Seang-tae, president of National Information Society Agency, asserted that guideline should be amended to highlight the importance of globalization.
The core topic of conversation at the meeting was difficult realities of sustaining a robust industry and prerequisite for Korea's SW industry rising to the level of other developed nations.
They discussed many challenges to growing the SW industry, refering to the 3Ds (Difficult, Dirty, Dangerous) of the sector in Korea, including difficulty in education software programmers, the shortage of manpower and and the associated cost. Additionally, they shared the view that globalization of the Korean SW industry should be a top priority.
