VOL.42 · July 27 · 2018
Three Eyes Inc.
The popularity and spread of the UCC service of 10 years ago would not have been possible without the establishment of an environment that made UCC video clips easy to make and easy to access. In the same manner, the era of 3D images will begin in earnest when an environment that makes 3D images easy to make and easy to access is created.
During about 20 years of service at ETRI, Yangsu Kim, CEO of Three Eyes Inc., was in charge of research on image display areas. He developed various technologies, small and large, and saw some of them commercialized in the market. However, there was much to be desired. Much of the research outcomes and technologies he achieved under government projects failed to make their way to commercialization, and in those cases his efforts were in vain. “I couldn’t stop myself from thinking that I had become complacent, falling deeper and deeper into fixed patterns. Also, it was quite regretful that there was not much that I could be fully satisfied with after 18 years of devotion to research. While I was seriously thinking about this, I happened to see a notice about the ETRI Pre-Startup Support Program.” Without any hesitation, he knocked on the door of ETRI’s Technology Startup Office.
Kim made a bold move to turn his dream into reality, telling himself, “I will have to give it a try.” Behind his courage was, in part, his determination to attempt to verify the technology he had accumulated as a researcher in image display areas. He decided to start a business focusing on developing a mobile 3D image platform. Since then he has been developing a platform that provides easy access to 3D images on mobile devices, wherever and whenever users want. His goal is to develop technology that allows users to enjoy 3D images on mobile devices in the same way they enjoy 2D images on YouTube or social media. Therefore, the key to success is to develop glass-free 3D image technology. Developing the technology requires a player or app that can display 3D images on mobile devices including smartphones, as well as optical films (or lenses) that allow glass-free technology. It also requires technology capable of quickly aligning the player and optical lenses and technology that stably displays images regardless of the position of the viewer. Furthermore, multi-view image technology that allows viewers to move their viewpoint smoothly needs to be developed.
He decided to start a business while he was carefully establishing his life plan and looking far ahead in the future. From his self-assessment, however, he concluded that he was not sufficiently prepared for starting a business at the time. He regretted that while conducting research projects as a researcher he had not paid more attention to how some developed technologies were commercialized and others were not. He thought if he had done so, it would have been of great help. Therefore, his advice to his colleagues is to pay more attention to research achievements of their own or other researchers with regard to how those accomplishments are applied to products and commercialized in the market. Admitting his failure to prepare himself as a pre-entrepreneur, he is now determined to work twice as hard as others to make up for his unpreparedness. He is also now more devoted to research activities than when he served as a researcher, to adopt and apply appropriate technologies to his products, which can be suitably applied to the VR and AR industries going forward. He is pushing forward with these plans because he is confident that one day the time will come when everyone can enjoy 3D images on their mobile devices whenever and wherever they want, even though today 3D image technology is applied to only a limited number of movies at theaters. Kim and all Three Eyes staff are sparing no effort in product development day and night to achieve their goal of releasing prototypes by the first half of next year.
| - | Establishment / February, 2017 |
| - | Ceo / Kim, Yang-su |
| - | Address / 11-231, ETRI, 218 Gajeongro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon |
| - | Tel / 82 - 42 - 860 - 0420 |
| - | E-mail / kimys@etri.re.kr |
| - | Mobile 3D Image Platform |
Live in the Present Moment
I am confident that when we live to the fullest in the present moment, we can live a happy life in the future. Based on this belief, I am determined to build a company that grows together with its employees. There is no doubt that a business’s priority is to make profits, and a business’s growth comes from growing revenues and profits. For a company to grow, its staff, one of a business’s key components, must fulfill their respective roles because they serve as a driving force to promote growth. My goal is to make our company a sustainably growing company by providing our employees with training programs for competence enhancement and fairly sharing corporate profits with them.
Secure Sufficient Preparation Period
If you want to start a business, it is important to specify your ideas and make them tangible in connection with your target R&D activities and business items. Even if you might not start a business based on these activities and items, those efforts will be of great help to your R&D career going forward. Once you start a business, you will be tied up with many more things, such as external affairs, administrative duties, and accounting tasks, and therefore you will have a limited amount of time available for technology development. Also, you will be faced with both time and funding limitations when you attempt to commercialize your business items into products. Therefore, it is essential to enhance the degree of completion of your target items before starting a business so that commercializing these items into products will directly lead to revenues.
