President Chung Jae-hoon of the Korea Institute for the Advancement of Technology (KIAT) tours one or two companies, universities or research every week without fail, to lend an ear to the voices of the field, and if necessary, offer advice.
Chung has made it a rule during his 30-year career as an official. He said it is more important to lend an ear to those in the field, who are supposed to be influenced by the execution of a government policy. Chung has remained faithful to his tenet since taking office as KIAT president on in September 2013. He loves saying that he works while traversing every nook and corner of the country. KIAT staff members also implement field tour programs.
The KIAT president has attached priority to creating quality jobs. He stressed that a focus should be on the impact the execution of projects will have when R&D tasks are planned. Chung did not rest on the fact that KIAT achieved its own goal of creating jobs in 2014. Chung said KIAT will redouble efforts to focus on the implementation of tasks with far-reaching job creation effects.
As part of its efforts to give a helping hand to companies suffering a shortage of manpower, KIAT has implemented the so-called Hope Interlinkage Project since 2012, a program to match SMEs with high-potential job seekers. So far, 30,000 students have participated in the program and toured 1,300 companies. Many of those who landed jobs have turned out to change their minds when they directly heard about welfare and future vision while touring the companies.
KIAT also operates a program to shoulder the part of the costs for retaining high-caliber manpower to nurture SMEs into tech-innovative ones.
The KIAT president also stresses collaboration with the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, other ministries and organizations, given the trend of technology convergence, regardless of industry, economy and market. KIAT’s collaboration efforts have paid off. KIAT led in the establishment of such pan-government consultative committees as the Technology Commercialization Consultative Committee; Industry Technology Cooperation Consultative Body; Women R&D employment Forum; and International Technology Cooperation Consultative Body.
It is not easy to persuade ministries and organizations with different interests and coordinate them to move toward given goals. The establishment of such consultative organizations has turned out to be more effective in addressing problems and issues in one place without visiting each of the involved organizations.
Chung believes that KIAT, an integrated technology support institution, should serve as a catalyst to help companies grow through R&D activities and build an ecosystem of the creative economy. He said KIAT will devote itself to becoming an institution of not missing out even minute grievances companies experience, and extend a warm helping hand to them.
He said the losing dynamics of manufacturing industries are common problems not only in Korea and but in other advanced countries, including the United States, Germany and Japan. Korea’s manufacturing industries, which peaked at 50.2 percent of the economy in 2010, is on a decline, and the percentage of added value, which stood at 30.6 percent, was considered higher compared to other countries.
Korea came up with the so-called Manufacturing Innovation 3.0 Initiative versus Germany’s Industry 4.0 and the United States’ Advanced Manufacturing Partnership Initiative.
The Manufacturing Innovation 3.0 Initiative calls for the enhancement of productivity and competitiveness by combining manufacturing industries with ICT and then commercializing new convergence products, he said. The government plans to increase the number of smart factories to 10,000 by 2020. The key of the initiative is to combine conventional mainstay products with new ICT functions, making them appealing for customers and more competitive, Chung said.
KIAT plans to implement joint R&D projects in advanced manufacturing fields with the United States, which has successfully achieved feats in resurging its manufacturing industries under the strong leadership of President Barack Obama. In an initial step, KIAT and the Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing (CCAM) jointly hosted the first-ever Advanced Manufacturing Innovation Forum from June 15-17 in Arlington, Virginia, which attracted some 150 people from Korean and U.S. industry, academia and research circles. The sides signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to facilitate collaborative research between Korean companies and U.S. companies through the CCAM research network. The joint fund, to be raised 2 billion won annually, will launch joint R&D projects next year.
KIAT’s One-On-One Support Program for SMEs, High Potential Enterprises
KIAT President Chung disclosed his determination to enhance the quality of its one-one-one, on-the-scene support to companies in an initiative to nurture 200 “Good Companies.”
The KIAT president unveiled The KIAT Strategies in four areas: information; technology; manpower; and infrastructure during a meeting with reporters in Sejong City in May.
“Companies should enhance their competitive edge to create an ecosystem for the creative economy, and we intend to unearth companies which lead the creative economy and make them good jobs through the biz-partner system,” Chung said.
Each KIAT staff member serves as a business partner to implement a one-on-one program to provide on-the-scene, in-depth, support to one company. The staff works as a guardian-cum-assistant to help a company gain easier and more convenient service to government support services. KIAT staff members toured more than 100 sites to give a helping hand to SMEs during “Wow Day” — Wonderful KIAT on Wednesday — on Wednesdays in 2014. Recognizing the need for offering on-the-scene, in-depth support to SMEs, KIAT launched the one-on-one program.
KIAT has an annual budget of 1.4 trillion won to implement some 100 diverse state R&D tasks. The institute wants to provide comprehensive support services tailored to meet SMEs’ needs, according to corporate growth stages — start-up, growth, retrieval and rechallenging.
SMEs most frequently complain of difficulties in manpower, commercializing technology and business models, and making inroads into foreign markets. The strategies call for the operation of the business partner system in information, technology, manpower and infrastructure that KIAT wants to focus on to yield tangible results.
Initially, KIAT plans to strengthen information on R&D activities of industrial technology with a potential of high availability by publishing statistical briefings on industrial technology. Information on the technologies listed on the National Tech-Bank website (www.ntb.kr) will be changed into a business-term one for companies’ understanding.
KIAT will launch projects to help companies put gifted manpower into their right place and successfully carry out the commercializing of projects, connecting markets. Among them are the Colla-Lab, a collaboration project calling for dispatching researchers from state-financed research institutions to SMEs, a project to support business ideas, a project to rediscover R&D, and a voucher system on technology commercialization.
An industrial manpower internship in which collegians undergo on-the-job training before being hired, and collaboration between industry and academia circles are expected to ease mismatches, KIAT officials said.
Professional consulting areas, which business-partners cannot deal with, will be left to a pool of professionals belonging to KIAT’s Global Technology Cooperation & Support Corps and Technology Commercialization Consultation Corps.
A regulation innovation center will be established and operated to cope with complaints and difficulties that SMEs find when commercializing their technologies. The center will form a network on collaboration with elements from the creative economy and innovation centers being established in 17 cities and provinces across the nation.
KIAT said it expects the KIAT Strategies to solidify its standing as a comprehensive service provider for companies.
KIAT, setting job creation as a major business management index, has achieved its 2014 in-house goal of creating some 20,000 jobs, up 25 percent compared to the original goal of 16,000 jobs. About 15,000 jobs were newly created through the nurturing of regional industries, 3,300 jobs came from supporting mid-size superstars and the remaining 1,800 jobs were created through an on-the-job training manpower development project.
KIAT is still maintaining a focus on job creation this year, but it will not impose a burden on companies, given their hard economic conditions.
KIAT President Chung has so far declared management phrases such “on-the-scene communication” and “spirit of collaboration to create jobs for the creative economy.”
Chung said, “Now is a time to consider ways of materializing action plans to the extent companies sense changes as far as it comes to working attitudes of field and collaboration. We’ll devote ourselves to enhancing our standing as a comprehensive service provider to companies by established a well-knitted, precise corporate support service network.”
KIAT President Chung Jae-hoon has come up with a one-on-one program to support SMEs.
KIAT President’s New Year Message
KIAT’s president set the top three 2015 management tenets as: launching a 30-year economic growth through the realizing of the government’s three-year economic innovation plan; leading the establishment of an ecosystem for the realization of the creative economy; and KIAT committed to fulfilling social responsibility as a public entity.
To this end, he said KIAT has decided to work out ways of connecting collaboration projects it implements with related organizations with the Creative Economy and Innovation Centers.
KIAT will expand investments in core industrial areas to secure future growth engines while establishing a comprehensive system designed to support stages of commercialization, ranging from startup to growth and retrieval.
In particular, KIAT will unearth Leading Korea Companies that will lead the creative economy, and KIAT will back up the tentatively-named Leading Company Foundation, to be established by the business community on a voluntary basis in order to assist SMEs in the commercialization of business ideas and lend an ear to the voices of businesses, which will be reflected to work out policies tailored to meet businesses’ needs, he said.
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