University Social Responsibility

In the emerging ICT world, cyber-physical developments will potentially change all aspects of human life through wireless networking among humans and things, in particular IoTs.

Smart mobile phones can be used to control and reconfigure smart homes equipped with intelligent sensors, lighting fixtures, entertainment gears, kitchen wares, etc. Unmanned vehicles, drones can tirelessly make deliveries and transport humans as requested. An intelligent wristband can continually monitor the heath state of its wearer and even call an ambulance in emergency situations.

Ubiquitous access to classrooms or learning centers can be made available for learner-centric education, including MOOCs. University researchers have enabled realization of such environments. Often questioned is the survival of universities in the MOOCs age. While those resisting or neglecting the influence of MOOCs may have difficulties in survival or lose out, those embracing challenges and innovations will provide more values added for advancement.

At KAIST, Education 3.0 way provides flipped learning through in-depth discussion in classrooms in lieu of the traditional one-way lecturing. At the same time, such advancements widen the gap between the haves and have-nots and cause disharmony regionally and globally. Universities can help narrow such gaps by promoting development of low-cost appropriate technologies for have-nots and underdeveloped countries, which I would call USR (University Social Responsibility). Some specific illustrations of KAIST-led USR movements will be presented.
 

About the panel member:

Sung-Mo “Steve” Kang is the 15th President of Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in Daejeon, Korea, a Distinguished Chair Professor on leave of the Jack Baskin School of Engineering, UC Santa Cruz, and Chancellor Emeritus of UC Merced. He received the B.S. degree from Fairleigh Dickinson University, Teaneck, New Jersey in 1970, the M.S. degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1972, and the Ph.D. degree from the University of California at Berkeley in 1975, all in electrical engineering. From 1995 to 2000, he was the Department Head of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Prior to UIUC, he was the Supervisor of High-End Microprocessor Design, responsible for development of world’s premier full-CMOS 32b BELLMAC-32, at AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ. From 2001 to 2007, he was the Dean of the Jack Baskin School of Engineering at UC Santa Cruz. From 2007 to 2011 he served as the Chancellor at UC Merced, the 10th campus of the UC System. Dr. Kang is a Fellow of the IEEE, the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He has served on the Presidential Advisory Council on Science and Technology of Korea as Chair of Creative Economy. His research interest includes computer-aided design of VLSI systems; design optimization for low power, performance, reliability and manufacturability; and nanoelectronic circuits and systems.