Deputy Minister Doh Kyung-hwan of the Office of Industrial Creativity and Innovation at the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) speaks at an opening ceremony of the 2016 Korea Tech Commercialization Fair.

Dignitaries, including MOTIE Deputy Minister Doh, KIAT President Chung Jae-hoon, and award winners, pose during the 2016 Korea Tech Commercialization Fair. (Photos: KIAT)

The 2016 Korea Tech Commercialization Fair, hosted by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) and organized by Korea Institute for Advancement of Technology (KIAT), took place at the El Tower in Seoul on July 6 under the theme “Open Innovation for Global Market And Future”

Starting with a ceremony to award prizes with those honored for their technology commercialization efforts, the fair coincided with a variety of events, designed to explore ways of spurring open innovation and sharing opinions, including an idea factory contest, and KIAT Start-up Open Innovation Forum. 

In an opening speech, KIAT President Chung Jae-hoon said, “Festive events of technology commercialization will be pushed continuously to successfully expedite the technology transaction market through open innovation and collaboration and exchange the successful DNA for technology commercialization.”

Deputy Minister Doh Kyung-hwan of the Office of Industrial Creativity and Innovation at the MOTIE delivered a welcoming speech in which he stressed the significance of introducing outside technology as strategies of securing competitiveness in an era of the so-called 4th Industrial Revolution characterized with super connectivity and grand convergence. He added that the government plans to establish policies to max out open innovation and spread the use of outside technology through gathering diverse opinions.

Twenty-one individuals in six areas were presented with awards for excellent practices of commercialization during the Korea Tech Commercialization Fair. The fourth rendition of the fair expanded the scope of prize winners from the conventional four to six areas, including open innovation and global commercialization categories. 

Business directors were inaugurated as a project to do a run-up for technology commercialization by restructuring the  conventional regime for supporting technology commercialization. They are composed of investment business directors serving as investment institutions charged with exploring and investing companies and business directors responsible for developing business models, offering counseling and consulting. Business directors will serve as full-time coaches specializing in all stage of support for commercialization. Under the project, about 15 billion won has been set aside for implementing 12 tasks, designed as the end of June. The project is designed to provide such support tailored to meet companies’ demands as additional technology development, certification and exploration of markets so that they can grow into global companies. 

The MOTIE signed an MOU with Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors to introduce technologies between large- and small-sized companies and spread shared growth. Hyundai Motor awarded SMEs with the rights to use Hyundai’s technologies free of charge. Unlike the one-on-one technology transfer from last year, Hyundai Motor shifted to a method of transferring its technologies to more companies. 

Spectators were given a chance to share open innovation success stories of the private sector. 

Hanmi Pharma Senior Executive Vice President Sohn Ji-woon shared a success story of the pharmaceutical company which has succeeded in the signing of mega-technology deals in succession. KT Executive Vice President Kim Hyung-wook spoke on a new open innovation system the telecom service provider has embraced.