한국통신학회 KICS

KICS Fall Conference 2023

by Sang-Hyo Kim, Sungkyunkwan Univ., Korea 

  Following the previous year's success, the KICS Fall Conference returned to the historic city of Gyeongju. The event took place at the Hotel Lahan Select from November 22 to 24, 2023. This year's conference was remarkable with record-breaking 568 papers presented and 923 attendees, making it the largest KICS Fall Conference to date. It marked the continuous growth of KICS over the past three years, attracting many participants from academia, industry, research institutes, and public agencies, and thus becoming a vibrant platform for technological and personal exchange. The conference featured meticulously organized invited talks, tutorials, and special sessions where the latest trends and advanced technologies in ICT convergence and communication were shared, generating significant interest among the attendees. 

  The conference opened with a reception featuring a welcome speech by President Een-kee Hong. Following this, Dr. Sang-hoon Song, the Information and Communication Policy Director at the Ministry of Science and ICT, delivered a special lecture titled “Digital Bill of Rights” focusing on the new order and norms required in the AI/digital era. 

  The keynote speaker, Prof. Giuseppe Caire from TU Berlin, introduced ISAC technology, an emerging topic in the field of communications, through his talk "Integrated Sensing and Communication Toolbox: Information Theory, Communication Theory, and Machine Learning." His insightful and in-depth lectures were extremely popular among the attendees. Additionally, there were two industrial keynote speeches. Dr. Juho Lee, a Fellow at Samsung Research, presented an interesting talk on “Evolution of Mobile Communication Technology towards 6G,” and Min-Soo Na, Manager at SK Telecom, discussed “Technical trends and vision for future 6G network evolution.” 

  The program included various other enriching activities, such as, instructive tutorials on cutting-edge research. Prof. Bang Chul Jung of Chungnam National University introduced holographic MIMO technology from the perspective of electromagnetic information theory. Additionally, there were engaging lectures by Prof. Jaeho Lee on the compression of large language models, and Prof. Jinho Choi on semantic communications. The AI Top Conference session showcased four research papers presented at top AI conferences, such as NeurIPS, ICML, and AISTATS, focusing on communication-related topics. Young-Chai Ko, the head of the ICT convergence department of NRF, Korea, introduced new programs and grants for NRF for 2024. The undergraduate paper contest was also exciting, with 119 submissions competing intensely. Creative research and graduation projects were introduced, with one paper winning the grand prize, five receiving excellence prizes, and 14 honorable mentions.

  The KICS Fall Conference was a resounding success filled with vitality and substance. This was made possible by the full support of the executive board and the dedicated contributions of the organizing committee members. The organizers extend their gratitude to KICS members and attendees who enriched the event.

  Finally, I would like to announce an important upcoming event: the KICS Winter Conference 2024, which will be held from January 31 to February 2, 2024, at the Yongpyong Resort in Pyeongchang. Everyone is encouraged to participate and submit papers for this upcoming conference. For more detailed information about these conferences, including schedules, submission guidelines, and registration, please visit the official website at https://conf.kics.or.kr. Stay tuned for further updates, and mark your calendars.