(left) A scene from Korea Agency for Infrastructure Technology Advancement's 

vision declaration ceremony  in which KAIA President Lee Jae-bung speaks  at the 

Construction Bldg. in Nonhyeon-dong, Seoul, on April 12. 

(right) MOLIT Minister Suh Seung-hwan gives a speech at the ceremony.

Korea Agency for Infrastructure Technology Advancement (KAIA) has declared the Vision 2023 “Let’ s Make a Happy World through Creation of Human-Oriented Technology” at the Construction Bldg. in Nonhyeon-dong, Seoul, on April 12. 

KAIA set its mission at enhancing the quality of people’ s lives and shoring up national competitiveness through sustainable civilized technology and put forward three strategies-- human-oriented R&D, future-creative R&D and happiness-sharing management. The R&D institution under the umbrella of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) unveiled top 10 strategy tasks: Lead future planning,; building infrastructure for research immersion,; expansion of projects for sharing people’ s happiness,; development of creative convergence technology, cultivating global top brands,; building future industries through capitalization of research outcomes,; ramping global R&D cooperation,; establishing its identity as technology management leader,; reliable, open-minded management,; and a warm-hearted culture. It also announced its new CI and slogan “Creative Dream Builder.”

Approximately 1,000 people on hand at the vision declaration ceremony were MOLIT Minister Suh Seung-hwan,; former construction & transport ministers,; KAIA President Lee Jae-bung,; and Oh Myung, Dongbu Group chairman in charge of IT and Electronics and ex-prime minister-cum-science and technology minister. 

The event came in two parts. In the first session, Koo Young-sung, chief of KAIS Development Team, presented seven future mega trends, human-oriented land and transportation technologies, including smart infrastructure, smart tolling, to be translated into practice in the next decade, and what the land and transportation sectors will look like in the year 2040 under the theme “Land and Transport Future Technologies Preparing for the Year 2040.”

Ex-science and technology minister Oh gave a lecture on the theme “The Future of Land and Transportation R&D” and the vision declaration session took place in the second session. 

In the lecture, Oh said, “Efforts need to be made to expand strategic investments, build infrastructure and secure gifted manpower to ramp up land and transportation R&D activities.”

The former science and technology minister called for the government’ s R&D outlay in the land and transportation sectors, which now accounts for 24 trillion won or 2 percent of the nation’ s total budget.

He went on to say that Korea should obtain the proprietary technologies to cope with natural disasters and climate change, and infrastructure needs to be built so that companies and people can be not only the beneficiaries of technology development but also their participants. Oh added the need for nurturing gifted manpower that will lead the land and transportation R&D sectors.  

MOLIT Minister Suh , in his commemorative speech, said, “Land and transportation technologies should be continually converged to back up an era of people’ s happiness and hope, and such woes as noises among apartment floors, atopy, surface condensation and heating costs will have to be approached in the R&D perspective in consideration of not only consumers and bus also of the underprivileged.”

KAIA President Lee said in his speech, “As we make a fresh start at the land and transportation R&D sectors, we plan to focus on leading roles in bringing about a happy world in which people-oriented technology values can be created. And we’ ll strive to take people closer to a happy world that the new government dreams about.”