In February 1966, next to the fish market in Cheonggye Stream 6-ga, Seoul. A sign was hung in a rented room on the fifth ground of an outdated financial institution constructing with a fishy odor. There are solely three workers, together with Choi Hyung-seop, the first director. It was a humble starting the place I had to put my head collectively in a house of about 10 pyeong with out even a correct desk.
This determined begin was the actuality of the Republic of Korea at the time. It was a time when per capita earnings was $100, and the foremost exports have been solely wigs, plywood, and hand-floated sweaters. Choi spoke instantly to President Park Chung-hee and made painful remarks.
“We can’t live by selling wigs and hand-floated sweaters forever, can we. In order to catch up with Japan and become a prosperous country, we need science and technology, especially our own industrial technology.”
The Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), the first state-run analysis institute in Korea and the birthplace of all government-funded analysis institutes at present, was born out of this pressing query. The delivery of KIST, which marks its sixtieth anniversary on the tenth, was the starting of the historical past of science and expertise in Korea. KIST’s 60 years are a historical past of innovation that reworked Korea, which remained in labor-intensive gentle business, into a expertise powerhouse and a file of the battle that created one thing out of nothing.
When the authorities pushed for the building of a complete metal mill in the late Sixties, the worldwide group, together with the World Bank (IBRD), shook its head, saying, “It is premature with Korean technology and capital.” However, the KIST researchers accomplished the “Pohang Steel Construction Technology Plan” in 1969 by lowering sleep at evening, and this report grew to become the decisive foundation for the Korean metal fable.
In the Seventies, the equipment, shipbuilding, and electronics industries have been sketched in line with the coverage of fostering the heavy and chemical business. The ‘Color TV receiver’, developed for the first time in Korea in 1972, laid the basis for the home electronics business. Korea’s first mini-computer “Sejong 1,” developed in 1975, has turn out to be a touchstone to shield data safety of main organizations resembling Cheong Wa Dae with our expertise.
The profitable improvement of ‘polyester movie’ in 1978 is a consultant achievement made by the tenacity of KIST researchers. Polyester movie, which was a key materials for videotapes at the time, was monopolized by solely 5 international locations, together with the United States and Japan. KIST researchers succeeded in impartial improvement for the sixth time in the world after repeated experiments on naked land, which later led to a whole lot of billions of received in import substitution and export efficiency.
In the Nineteen Eighties, it stood out in the fields of high-tech supplies and precision chemistry. Developed in 1984, “Aramid Fiber” is a “dream fiber” that’s 5 occasions stronger than metal, securing world-class expertise following DuPont, paving the means for localization of physique armor and aerospace supplies. During the 1988 Seoul Olympics, a banned drug was detected in the urine of world-renowned monitor and area star Ben Johnson, who ran the doping management heart for the second time in Asia and wrote the “9.79 seconds myth” at the time.
“This was a time when senior scientists challenged the impossible by designing the ‘Miracle on the Han River,'” mentioned Oh Sang-rok, head of KIST. “If KIST at that time focused on ‘technology to solve hunger,’ it is the same mental root in that KIST is challenging the challenges facing humanity by inheriting its ‘success DNA’.”
This spirit of problem continues to be ongoing in the 2020s. KIST is making vital achievements at the forefront of the international competitors for technological supremacy. In December 2021, it succeeded in creating the world’s second ‘moveable quantum pc’ that operates at room temperature. The achievement of overcoming the constraints of current quantum computer systems, which required cryogenic environments shut to minus 273 levels Celsius, reveals that KIST has secured its personal technological competitiveness in quantum expertise as effectively.
In the bio sector, sensible industrialization achievements have been exceptional. In October 2024, KIST signed a $370 million (about 503.7 billion received) expertise switch contract with an Italian pharmaceutical firm for CV-01, a new dementia drug candidate underneath improvement. It is the largest single expertise export by a government-funded analysis institute. If current medicine solely relieve signs, CV-01 is differentiated in that it focused the root explanation for dementia.
Challenges in the area of robots are additionally persevering with. In September final 12 months, it joined arms with LG Electronics to collectively develop ‘KAPEX’, a Korean humanoid robotic. It plans to inherit the expertise that developed Korea’s first humanoid “Sento” in the early 2000s and evolve it into a general-purpose robotic appropriate for the AI period. It goals to safe robotic expertise that may collaborate with people at catastrophe websites.
KIST, which celebrates its sixtieth anniversary, offered “reduction” as a new key phrase past “growth.” The sixtieth anniversary slogan, “RETURN TO YOU, Back to the People and the Future”, contained the establishment’s willingness to return the advantages to the folks and society by way of its science and expertise capabilities gathered over the previous 60 years. The technique to materialize that is ‘ACE Tech’. This means that we’ll concentrate on applied sciences which might be superior, convergent, and have sensible results. Rather than sticking to papers or patent figures, the intention is to create a expertise that may be utilized to precise industrial websites and other people’s lives.
“Basic research should not remain in the laboratory,” Director Oh mentioned. “We will create a virtuous cycle structure that solves social problems and improves the quality of people’s lives by scaling up research results.”
[Reporter Lee Saebom]