WEBZINE
ISSN 2671-891X
Vol.2 No.1, 2020
Korea is in the middle of global upheaval from the COVID 19 pandemic since the outbreak in January this year. Without doubt, we will eventually overcome this plight because Korea has the world’s best medical service, ICT, civility, and transparency. The resilience of this country has been proven through the journey of development until today after embracing numerous crises and setbacks. After many ups and downs, we launched 5G services in early April last year for the first time in the world. This achievement is distinguished from those in the past as we exclusively developed mobile systems, mobile phones, and services. As for 4G service, there were two standards-WiMax and LTE, and 4G mobile service began in the U.S. in 2010. At that time, they used LTE mobile phones manufactured by Samsung.
The Korean Institutes of Communications and Information Sciences (KICS) Winter Conference was held from February 5–7 at Yongpyong Resort in Gangwon Province, Korea. The conference, with both Korean and English conferences held parallelly, was successfully completed with the participation of 1,000 researchers and the submission of 700 papers.In particular, 5G-based service idea marathon for undergraduate students was held to introduce and propagate state-of art 5G wireless service and technology, contributing KICS’s influence greatly to the academia and education. It has become a time for industry-academic associations to come together to discuss the rapidly changing research and development environment and innovative technology.
The workshop started with a welcome reception dinner hosted by KICS at a humble yet friendly restaurant located in downtown San Diego on Jan 31, 2020. I drove in a rental car with Prof. Jong-Seon No (SNU) and Prof. Kwang Soon Kim (Yonsei Univ) from Los Angeles Airport. It was nice to see Dr. Byung K. Yi (LGEUS, FCC, Interdigital, and then visiting UCSD) and Dr. Sang Kim (LGEUS) who have worked hard for the workshops all these years, since they first began. The next day, we had a full-day session at the LGEUS Zenith R&D Center, where they provided us with a lovely lunch. All such local support was organized by Dr. Sang Kim (LGEUS). Dr. Kim has not only supported us this year but since the very beginning in 2009. For this contribution, KICS honored him with a special award in 2019.
On Wednesday, April 22, the Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences (KICS) celebrated the 65th Information and Communication Day and held a commemorative event with the support of the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT). This event was held online in consideration of the COVID-19 threat. Over 300 ICT experts and officials attended. The conference began with an opening address by the President of the KICS (Saewoong Bahk), followed by a congratulatory speech by the Minister of MSIT (Kiyoung Choi), and a keynote lecture on the subject of “Information and Communication Technology Contributing to Overcoming COVID-19” by the Chairman of the 4th Industrial Revolution Committee (Sungroh Yoon).
We are pleased to announce that ICT Express has been accepted for indexing in the Engineering Index (Ei Compendex). The inclusion of ICT Express in the Engineering Index demonstrates our dedication to providing the most relevant and influential contents to our community. Engineering Index is the broadest and most complete engineering literature database available in the world. It provides a truly holistic and global view of peer reviewed and indexed publications with over 20 million records from 77 countries across 190 engineering disciplines. Every record is carefully selected and indexed using the Engineering Index Thesaurus to ensure discovery and retrieval of engineering-specific literature that engineering students and professionals can rely on.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Korea and the rest of the world are experiencing global economic recession with an all-encompassing social crisis. The Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences (KICS) is also experiencing the effect of COVID-19, resulting in the cancelation or postponing of many events such as workshops and conferences planned in 2020. A few events were held online with virtual presentations. The 2020 Winter Conference, the first major conference in 2020, was successfully held in Yongpyong Resort in February, with the use of thermal imaging camera, attendance management, disinfection of conference rooms, and health screening using self-report questionnaire forms. All the participants were very cooperative with regards to all the preventive measures for COVID-19, and the conference was successfully completed.