Insights into Korea's Sudden Rise
“The future of Voice Recognition”
KOREA IT TIMES
Asia Institute Seminar with Mark Hasegawa-Johnson
Tuesday, May 29th, 2012
Professor Mark Hasegawa-Johnson received his Ph.D. from MIT in 1996 and serves as associate professor in the University of Illinois department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and a full-time faculty member in the Artificial Intelligence group at the Beckman Institute. His field of interest is speech production and recognition by humans and computers, including landmark-based speech recognition, integration of prosody in speech recognition and understanding, audiovisual speech recognition, computational auditory scene analysis, and biomedical imaging of the muscular and neurological correlates of speech production and perception. Professor Johnson is visiting Korea to meet with experts in academics and industry to discuss his research.
One indication of how Seoul is distinct from other global cities is the emphasis on citizens that occasionally crops up in public announcements. I would not claim that the particular public announcement from the City of Seoul that came across on the subway yesterday represents all policy in Seoul, but it does suggest an argument that you will not find articulated by that many city governments through official channels. Read more of this post
Asia Institute Seminar
with
Professor Noam Chomsky
Department of Linguistics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
“WHAT CAN YOUTH DO TO CHANGE THE WORLD?”
The Asia Institute held this Webinar with Professor Noam Chomsky of MIT on December 3, 2011 as a webinar between Seoul, Korea and Cambridge, Massachusetts. Professor Chomsky discussed how youth can effectively work to change the world and improve policies at both the local and international levels. He stressed the need for youth around the world to work together and to come up with their own solutions, saying repeatedly that the answer must come from students, not from him. When told that he was the leading progressive intellectual in the United States, he promptly replied, “I resign!”
There have been several Korean media interviews with Professor Chomsky over the years, but this seminar was the first time that Korean students, including those not fluent in English, were able to ask Professor Chomsky questions directly. This dialog between experts and young people is emblematic of the Asia Institute approach to contemporary issues. Professor Chomsky later remarked, “I much appreciated the opportunity.”
Video on Youtube:
Emanuel addresses Korean college students in Future Forest set to travel to China to work in anti-desertifcation efforts.
I gave a talk for a group of Korean college students preparing to travel to China where they will work together with Chinese students on anti-desertification projects in July. The students are from universities across Korea and the event was sponsored by the Korea Foundation and Future Forest, the NGO dedicated to Korea-China cooperation on environmental issues of which I am a member. This new effort to bring together young people from Korea and China represents the initiative of the Asia Institute to build close networks between people of different nations that parallel technological and logistical integration. Read more of this post
Seoul is stepping into a much accelerated rate of internationalization over the last six months, so much that I would argue that Seoul should no longer be considered as representative of Korea, but put in a new class of global cities that are competing for global domination in economics, culture, education and prestige. That is to say, Seoul is going head to head with Dubai, Singapore, New York, London and Shanghai in a race for the top seat. You can refer to my previous short post on the next Byzantium for a few thoughts on this phenomenon.
For example Seoul is going through a wave of enormous building projects such as the Dongdaemun History and Culture Park that may well fundamentally alter the landscape of the city. Read more of this post
I have noted previously that one of the outstanding aspects of Korean education is the development of educational comic books aimed at elementary school students that present rather complex information about contemporary society and the world in a readable and entertaining manner. These educational comic books are so well done that I think they deserve to be translated into English for international use.
I decided to fast for the entire day on Saturday, June 23. There were a variety of reasons why I did so. I last fasted in 1997. I did so at that time in solidarity with the starving people in North Korea. I felt that I needed to know what it was like to go hungry, granted for me it was just a short experiment. In 1997, I did so at a time when a large number of people were fasting for that same purpose.
I had a chance to visit the Sungmisan School (성미산학교) in Seoul today for their yearly festival and I spoke a few minutes with one of its founders, Yu Chang-bok (유창복) and the current principle Park Bok-seon (박복선).
Founded in 1996, Sungmisan School is one of the best-known of the alternative schools in Korea, running a program from nursery school through high school—and there is even a plan to establish a university. The school puts a tremendous emphasis on the role of students in society, and particularly courses related to the environment and agriculture (while the school is located in the middle of Seoul). Read more of this post
This article suggests the new concept of “big-data based health IT services” in Korea. The potential for innovation is considerable as many in the United States and Europe would simply not tolerate this use of information. But in Korea, and in China, and elsewhere, it could well be a new model.
MK Business News
2012.05.21
SKT, KT venture into big data health IT business
Yoo Ki-yoon (aged 51) recently received a personalized healthcare plan based on genome analysis, which processes the patient’s medical and family history and offers relevant healthcare information. This comprehensive health IT service suggests which hospital to visit Read more of this post
