VOL.42 · July 27 · 2018
Trip
Diving Deep into the ICT Festival
2018 ICT Commercialization Festival
The 2018 ICT Commercialization Festival was successfully held from May 23rd to 26th at COEX in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. The event provided a venue for sharing private companies’ success stories of technology commercialization based on the R&D achievements of the government and public institutions, shaping the future of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The venue of this ICT festival was attended by 128 businesses presenting 168 technologies, including AI, drone, IoT, and cloud technologies. As Korea’s leading player in ICT, ETRI was also part of this veritable feast of ICT technologies.
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Largest ICT Commercialization Festival in Korea
The 2018 ICT Commercialization Festival is the largest event of the kind in Korea, and was hosted by the Ministry of Science and ICT and organized by four institutions including ETRI. The festival provided a valuable opportunity to have a taste of core technologies underlying the Fourth Industrial Revolution and where these revolutionary changes are headed. 128 businesses participated in the festival and presented core ICTs of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. ETRI also made contribution with its 21 cutting-edge ICTs.
The 2018 ICT Commercialization Festival was different from other events of its kind focusing on viewing exhibits. The venue was filled with businesses aspiring to commercialize ICTs, as well as individuals intending to participate in technical consultations. Promising technology briefings provided SMEs with an opportunity to hear about ETRI’s cutting-edge technologies and especially those that can be immediately commercialized.
Most booths were designed to allow hands-on experience of technologies. In the virtual reality experience zone, visitors screamed and shouted as if they were on an extreme ride in a theme park.
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Leading the Way in Spreading ICT to Various Fields
The 2018 ICT Commercialization Festival, which was a big hit with many visitors, was held in an attempt to promote ICT commercialization and lead the way in the future in cooperation with SMEs joining hands in these efforts.
In the marketing section, ETRI and Korea Electronics Technology Institute (KETI) presented the following various programs: promising technology briefings; technology transfer conference; virtual investment attraction competition, which aimed to enhance the investment attraction competence of businesses seeking investment funding opportunities for commercialization; and technology financing conference targeting SMEs and startups.
In the policy communication section, a presentation session on success stories of technology commercialization and a technical standardization forum were held, and a hearing session for ICT R & D Innovations Vouchers, implemented by the Ministry of Science and ICT to strengthen the R&D competence of SMEs and mid-sized companies, was held.
Also, the Fourth Industrial Revolution Hall provided visitors with hands-on experience of technologies and services, including AI and virtual reality, contributing to fulfilling the general public’s curiosity about the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The 2018 ICT Commercialization Festival holds even greater significance because it has presented a possibility that fourth industrial revolution technologies can be extended to various fields permeating our daily lives.
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Wind of Technology Turning into Wind of the Future
Foreign market entry support programs were also implemented for domestic SMEs, mid-sized enterprises, and startups in line with the festival’s slogan, “Wind of Technology Turning into Wind of the Future.” Aside from these, there were multiple programs in place, including the Trend Insight Conference where current technological trends were introduced and shared by invited domestic and international ICT figures, and Global Accelerator Conference & Demo Day, which aimed to connect investors from European countries, southeast Asian countries, and North America.
These multiple events laid a foundation to build an attractive market that can draw investment from buyers or venture capital firms, rather than just searching for investors. If we are able to create an environment where our major domestic ICT businesses can sell their competitive ICT products and further attract investment so that their cutting-edge technologies can be promoted while heightening the pride of the Korean people, this will serve two ends. The 2018 ICT Commercialization Festival is now leading the way in promoting cutting-edge domestic technologies and facilitating technology commercialization. We cannot wait to see the 2019 ICT Commercialization Festival, which will return with technologies at the highest levels.
