KISS playing leading policy role for Korea to be a global software power With the inauguration of the new president on Jan. 1, 2006 as an impetus, the Korea Information Science Society (www.kiss.or.kr), with a long history and an authoritative academic society in the fields of domestic computers, as well as software, is transforming itself. As one example, this Society which is being assessed as a distinguished academic institution in Korea in terms of society scale, active member numbers, academic activity and so forth, is striving to change the existing Korea Computer Congress (KCC)-its academic general meeting, which will be held on June 21~23, 2006 in Yongpyeong, Gangwon Province, Korea-to one in which members can enjoy the Congress with their families, by developing a variety of programs. The newly inaugurated president, Kim Dong-Yoon, Ph.D./Dean & Prof., Graduate School of Information Communication & Technology, Ajou University, revealed his further plans to activate this Society's academic activities in an exclusive interview with the Korea IT Times to commemorate his inauguration. To begin with, he stressed that the Society would consolidate its firm groundwork as the competent society of computer engineering field accreditation. Second, the Korea Information Science Society will upgrade its current phase one notch higher by inviting papers of higher quality through its online paper contribution system, in which graduate school students also can submit their theses, and by publishing an English journal. Kim elaborated on his plans, adding that reinforcing the Society's Web site also is one of the main priority projects in 2006 New Year for young professors to be able to easily access academic information, job information and lecture materials. As the largest bottleneck in carrying out such projects, Kim identified the financial problem as the most important subject of discussion, pointing out that to some degree, the government's support for special IT-related academic societies is necessary. Concerning the so-called evolving 'Post IT839 strategy' of the Ministry of Information & Communication (MIC) to be pursued in the New Year, building upon the existing 'IT839 Strategy,' the newly inaugurated president expressed his support for it. He explained that MIC's initiative also to proclaim 2005 as the first year of software industry nurturing was desirable, in that software development is a one of Korea's priorities. In conjunction with its policy presentation for Korea to become a software power, he underlined that the Society's role was important. As examples of industries Korea could develop even more, he named solutions for game, animation development, worldwide IT services, embedded software for mobile applications and so forth. The president further emphasized the importance of international academic exchanges. In fact, the Korea Information Science Society has been representing Korea in International Federation of Information Processing (IFIP) and assumed leadership of several academic conferences' establishment, such as ICOIN, JWCC, DASFAA, APSEC and WAAC. Its academic exchange collaboration with overseas institutions includes IFIP (International Federation for Information Processing), IEEE (The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers), IEEE/CS (The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers/Computer Society), ACM (Association for Computing Machinery), IPSJ (The Information Processing Society of Japan), KOCSEA (The Korean Computer Scientists and Engineers Association in America), and IEICE-ISS (The Institute of Electronic, Information and Communication and Systems Society). For reference, this Society's registered members number 17,307 persons and institutional member amounted to 362 as of 2005. Expressing his hopes for the future, Kim stressed that the Korean Information Science Society has to first of all serve as a foundation for academic research, and in that respect, he would do his best to enhance awareness of IT, and to universalize IT. Beyond this, he hoped to develop software technology through educational-industrial collaboration and to create jobs.