Evangelist sees the technology light

Ji Guk-hwan

By Yoon Sung-won

The term technology evangelist refers to IT specialists who introduce technologies to those who are unfamiliar with them.

Like religious evangelists, they need a strong faith in what they do ― to help listeners understand the technology and persuade them to adopt it.

Technology evangelist Ji Guk-hwan, 28, works at Unity Korea, the Seoul branch of global company Unity Technologies, which operates the world’s most sought-after game design and development tool “Unity.”

He said both the job and Unity technology had fascinated him.

“My role as a technology evangelist is to explain about new technology or software services to those who do not know about it or those who want to learn about it,” Ji said the Unity Korea office in Seocho-gu, southern Seoul, on Nov. 11.

He said the company had organized game development workshops for those who had not used the software. Participants in the workshops, which were designed to promote the convenience and accessibility of the software, had to develop a game within five hours.

Ji, who also joins in these events to introduce and demonstrate how to produce games with software, said it was a pleasant experience to inspire people with the benefits of technology.

“At first, many people doubt that they can produce a game,” he said. “Later they told me it was an amazing experience to a see a game they developed actually working on a smartphone.”

Ji said the biggest benefit of the Unity development program was that it supported various game platforms such as Apple’s iOS operating system, Google’s Android, Sony’s Playstation and Microsoft’s Xbox, helping developers launch their games more widely.

Alongside game development, the program is also used in more diverse industrial fields such as producing software for medical devices, curating applications for art centers, and automatic ticket machines at cinemas, he said.

Ji, who is a programmer at the company, said he did not plan to be a technology evangelist when he majored in art at university.

“I was fond of talking,” he said. “I especially like briefing people and explaining things to them in plain words. Once I started working, I realized the job description as a technology evangelist ― to enlighten people with key points of new and complicated technologies ― is my thing.”

Ji said he hoped the Unity engine will contribute to the Korean game industry to develop more novel games.

“Korea’s mobile games are globally recognized in quality, but not in terms of novelty,” he said. “I understand many Korean mobile games are focused on making money. We need more high-quality indie games to widen the diversity of titles.

“We anticipate that smaller game-development companies and individual developers will roll out novel games.

“The company and I are willing to support them to concentrate on production.”