SEOUL, KOREA – The Korea Evaluation Institute of Industrial Technology (KEIT) is a government-affiliated organization under the Ministry of Knowledge Economy. KEIT is a state of the art technology think-tank charged with the missions of policy research, R&D management, technology assessment, and international cooperation.
Lee Ki-sub, chairman and president of the KEIT wants to create a Korean technological wave that resonates throughout the world, like the Korean cultural wave that has been rocking the planet. “The KEIT has introduced “K-Tech,” a brand which aims to publicize Korea’s leading technology to the world market,” Lee said. The new brand was created to help Korean companies develop the world’s finest technology through financial support from the Ministry of Knowledge Economy.
Korea’s leading technological items are smartphones, ships, cars, LCDs, and semiconductors. The KEIT judges that these items can help Corporate Korea record US$2 trillion in trade. Its slogan, “The KEIT is taking the initiative in the era of the world’s best K-Tech,” expresses the KEIT’s pride in Korea’s technology as the world’s best. The K-Tech strategy is to discover the R&D success cases and major technologies of the knowledge-based economy and turn them into representative Korean brands.
Therefore, the KEIT is pushing forward with the introduction of brand to complete business processes while publicizing K-Tech through PR materials internally and externally. “Korea has to compete with Brazil, Russia and China in the world market. China recorded US$1 trillion in trade ahead of Korea,” Lee said. “Also, Korea must catch up with technological powers such as the U.S., Europe and Japan. One good example is the patent lawsuit between Samsung Electronics and Apple.”
“Korea needs to develop creative technology armed with innovative ideas in order to realize steady economic development and take the lead in the world market,” Lee said. “That is to say, we need to possess both the world’s best technology and the world’s first technology.”
The core of K-Tech is technological convergence and combination. Last year, the IT convergence market was 49.7 trillion won. The market is expected to rise to 117 trillion won in 2020.
It is necessary for Korea to create a blue ocean through convergence and combination among industries and technologies. In particular, Korea boasts of leading IT and manufacturing technologies and an advanced service industry.
Lee thinks that Korea can produce competitive products by applying Koreans’ creativity to them. “In fact, Korea’s advanced technologies are creating markets as international standards in sectors such as fourth generation wireless telecommunication (LTE, WiBro), shipbuilding (vessel mooring technology), and networks (wireless sensor networks),” Lee said. “The Ministry of Knowledge Economy is promoting a convergence ecosystem covering overall industry through the Industrial Convergence Promotion Act established last month. This means that Korea will create new added value by converging its outstanding IT and leading industries.
The KEIT aims to make technological convergence a representative image of Korea, Inc. by expanding R&D and supporting the creation of new markets. Major advanced countries such as the U.S., Japan, and European countries are pushing ahead with national convergence strategies while considering convergence the source of future development.
“Korea also needs multi-faceted convergence strategies that can cover IT, industries, and cultures. We should foster new convergence industries such as BT, NT, and robots as our future new growth engines,” Lee said.
