KT¡¯s intelligent, integrated energy management system is to be selected as a case study as part of educational materials at Harvard Business School in September.
Prof. Forest L. Reinhardt at Harvard Business School visited Korea for a week from July 9 to obtain information on the KT-MEG (micro energy grid) and make an inspection tour to KT. He toured the KT-MEG control center in Gacheon, south of Seoul, after meeting with KT Chairman Hwang Chang-gyu and other executives with KT¡¯s Smart Energy Business Team.
KT-MEG represents the second time one of KT¡¯s projects has made the list of HBS¡¯s study cases following KT¡¯s GiGatopia. And KT-MEG is the sixth case study of HBS involving Korean companies, including Samsung Electronics and CJ E&M. KT Chairman Hwang gave a lecture to 100 HBS graduate schools students at the HBS auditorium in celebration of the GiGAtopia¡¯s selection of HBS¡¯s case study.
Prof. Reinhardt studied the KT-MEG business model in the perspective of sustainable management for about one year. He showed a keen interest in KT entering the energy management segment, which has nothing to do with KT¡¯s mainstay ICT business. He noted that he was confidant KT¡¯s innovative attempt to connect KT¡¯s differential competitiveness with other different industry would impress HBS students.
KT-MEG is the world¡¯s first intelligent, integrated energy management system in which energy production, consumption and transaction efficiencies can be pursued through the intelligent analysis engine, dubbed ¡°e-Brain,¡± developed by KT in 2015. The system is capable of analyzing real-time efficiencies of generating and consuming diverse energy sources, including not only electricity but also heat and gas and realizing optimal management. The real-time analysis is made based on big data KT accumulated concerning energy production and consumption patterns.
Convergence between ICT and energy industries will emerge as a new engine to expedite global sustainable development, Prof. Reinhardt was quoted as saying in an interview. Society will shift into one in which such ICT information as big data will block raw material waste and create wealth, the professor said. How limited energies can be utilized will be a factor in determining each country and company¡¯s competitiveness, the professor said.
KT Project to Prevent Global Epidemics Using Big Data Finds Its Way Abroad
When the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) epidemic hit Korea in 2015, leaving 38 people dead and 16,693 others quarantined, KT floated a novel idea. The company wanted to trace the migration and path of virus carriers using GPS information from smartphones and navigations.
Given the seriousness of the epidemic, the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (MSIP) permitted KT to utilize personal telecom data with which the service provider developed a system of preventing the spread of the epidemic disease and provided it to health authorities.
KT, seeing the success of the system, decided to expand the big data quarantine network designed to cope with epidemics. On July 8 at the 2017 G20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany, the prevention of the spread of epidemics was added to the G20 agenda. The move came about two years after the outbreak of the MERS epidemic.
KT Executive Vice President Yoon Jong-jin said, ¡°KT has made a feat: a project KT has so far implemented is selected as one of the agenda of the G20 Summit.¡±
The episode is a watershed event in Korean diplomatic history, he said.
KT Chairman Hwang Chang-gyu said in an interview at the KT research center in Woomyeon, Seocho-gu, Seoul, on July 8, ¡°KT¡¯s project has got a boost as the G20 Summit picked the strengthening of the preventing the spread of epidemics diseases as one of its agendas.¡± The project which involved the requirement of permission to use personal information needs cooperation among countries, he said.
KT Chairman Hwang Chang-gyu made a proposal to prevent the spread of epidemic diseases using big data to the government of each country and global telecom service providers for the first time, drawing global reception. At the G20 Multi-Stakeholder Conference in Dusseldorf, Germany, on April 6, KT Chairman Hwang said, ¡°We¡¯re cooperating with health authorities of about 10 countries in the preventing of epidemics using big data of smartphones.¡± He made the remarks while attending the UN Global Compact Leaders Summit 2016 in New York last June. He floated the proposal, saying that analyzing overseas roaming information by smartphone users could lead investigators to the routes of epidemics.