Inauguration of Jeju Science Park
By Lee Sun-ho
It was a meaningful occasion for me to join the opening ceremony of the Jeju Science Park (JSP) on March 25, attended by Prime Minister Chung Un-chan and other dignitaries.
The opening was followed by commemorative seminar lectures by Suh Nam-pyo, president of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), and other professional figures.
The two big consecutive fanfare functions conducted by the Jeju Free International City Development Center (JDC, established on May 15, 2002) can be milestone events in pursuing the dream of Jeju Island as a unique special self-governing province (since July 1, 2006), allowing official privileges and immunities plus tax incentives for visitors and investors either from Korea or overseas.
The JSP is a high-tech, science complex of 1 square kilometer (271 acres), costing around 457 billion won ($381 million).
With a series of buildings dedicated to scientific research and businesses looking to challenge new frontiers, as well as a property development designed for the concentration of high tech, science or research-related firms, the JSP is the initial step of six long-term core projects implemented by the JDC.
It is the first of the six ambitious plans underway for the purpose of promoting economic development and competitiveness of cities and regions by focusing on product advancement and innovation, adding value to client-tenant companies, and seeking to create new knowledge-based jobs.
On the significant inauguration of the JSP, the vanguard among the JDC projects, as a non-science-background ordinary citizen, I may suggest some management paradigms well suited for value-added service destinations as appropriate ways to promote human endeavors in challenges, passions and creation.
First, the JSP must be a gate open to every qualified person in the areas of knowledge in which it has its own identity with a global vision, as its symbolic slogan, ``Gateway to the World,'' signifies.
Within the complex, all client-tenant companies should utilize Jeju's diverse natural settings and pristine environment to inspire people to excel.
It is a place for human-based businesses and high-tech-knowledge industries, having many advantageous benefits. The JSP is a potential opportunity provider to overcome new challenges, and provide an international environment as a high-tech area to enable world-class corporations to succeed in global business.
Currently, 35 Korean companies (including a KAIST unit) plan to move into the new science park. Although the JSP will have to compete with other sites in Asia and also within the Korea, the JDC hopes foreign companies will soon show interest as well.
Second, a business-friendly capability must be exercised by the JSP to support entrepreneurship that provides production expertise and management skills for fledgling hidden-champion firms, particularly quasi-market-oriented start-up and medium-sized enterprises by marketing its high-valued products and services.
The JSP needs to push for a society that allows for the protection of product and process secrets, via patents, security or any other means.
Third, the JSP must be transformed into an optimized spot for networking development of digital contents based on rich tangible and intangible cultural assets. It should encourage and nurture an ICT, bio-tech, incubator and R&D environment for technology creation equipped with adequate utilities and facilities.
Fourth, it must include in its management an active strength of vision with the power of education, and a high and visible profile.
Such management needs to be perceived by relevant actors in the community as a tool for embodying an interface between academia and industry under a long-lasting blueprint through a process of development, priority designation, integration, optimization and discovering new opportunities.
Fifth, to promote innovative value-added services for all client-tenant companies inside the complex, the new park must devote itself to open an era of harmonious fusion of technology through fully-productive implicit computing in the years to come by means of an adequate interface, an embedded intelligence and ubiquitous access.
The JSP should also include a prominent percentage of consulting firms as well as technical service firms, including labs and quality control structures.
Sixth, the backing of powerful, dynamic and stable economic supporters must be an important factor for the operation of the park. They should include recognized expertise in financing matters, administrative executive bodies or local higher educational institutions such as Jeju National University and Jeju College of Technology as necessary.
Land and other taxes need to be positively waived off or reduced by local government for a number of years, to attract emerging prominent client-tenant companies for the successful implementation of the science and technology park.
Seventh and last, the JSP is not a stand-alone entity.
With close links to outstanding international science parks such as Silicon Valley in Northern California, the world's first science park started in the early 1950s, and Daedeok Innopolis in Daejon, in which KAIST is located, the JSP must eventually attain the targeted dream of fully utilizing its clean and well-preserved natural resources, and unique comparative advantages inherent in the island province.
My personal view is that the launch of JSP can be compared to pressing the first button on a long-distance path in carrying out the six core projects of the JDC under the dual synergetic administrative support of the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs, and the Jeju Special Self-Governing Province.
I am sure that the gala opening of the JSP, along with the other five core projects of the JDC underway, is an epochal stepping-stone for Jeju to take off toward future-oriented internationalization in the 21st century.
It is a trigger to make Jeju the land of hope, the land of peace and the land of versatile opportunities, eventually attaining the target of the Jeju Free International City where resources (including people, capital, goods, etc.) can flow freely.
The writer is a member of the Investment Deliberation Committee of the Jeju Free International City Development Center (JDC) located in Jeju City. He can be reached at kexim2@unitel.co.kr.