[Donor of the Day] Kong Deuk-jo, a Doctoral Student at GIST Graduate School for School of Information & Communications

“I swelled with pride when I donated my money to GIST’s Dreamfund!”

 

 

 

 

<Donor of the Day>

Kong Deuk-jo, a Doctoral Student at GIST Graduate School for School of Information & Communications

 

He is a warm-hearted young donor with a radiant smile.

 

THE GIST is a campaign to set up a development fund for the GIST (or Dreamfund) conducted last year to celebrate GIST’s 20^th anniversary. Kong Deuk-jo (a doctoral student) is the first person who made a donation to the GIST; he expressed his love for the GIST by paying part of the prize money he obtained when he was one of the winners of Campus Patent Strategy Universiade as the donation. Mr. Kong completed his Master’s course at the GIST and is in his 2^nd year of the Master’s program as well as a member of the council for GIST’s Married Student Apartment.

 

You’ve spent 4 years at the GIST as a graduate and doctoral student. How was your undergraduate years?

 

I was full of curiosity and did everything what I wanted to do. So I performed four internship at the institutions related to my major, electronic engineering. I did soldering all day long during one internship (laughter). And that curiosity made me take one year off from my university to go to a business school in the US, though I was just an engineering student who never had any experience with business administration.

 

Business school? You mean you went to the US as you had an interest in management of technology?

 

(Laughter) No. That’s not the story. I was an engineering student so I was very busy with various experiments and practicing but business students I acquainted myself with seemed to enjoy relatively free time except for school hours. That made me curious about “what do business students learn?” In addition, I wanted to improve my English. So I decided to go to the US.

 

How was your time at the business school?

 

I realized business administration wasn’t my style. As a proverb says “Don´t bite off more than you can chew,” I returned to my university one year later and graduated. 

 

How did you go to the GIST?

 

Actually I didn’t have any plan to go to a graduate school so I sought a job after graduation. I was employed by SK E&C (Plant Division) but I was drawn by something I can’t tell exactly and decided to go to a graduate school. It was not easy to prepare for graduate school admission but luckily I was admitted by the GIST and now I’m a doctoral student.

 

What are you studying now?

 

I’m carrying out LED-related research under Professor Lee Dong-seon. An LED(light-emitting diode) is a small light source. Our research focuses on placing smaller LEDs closely on a screen to make it work in a similar manner as Google Glass. To do so, LEDs in three primary colors (red, green, and blue) should be overlapped vertically, rather than in parallel, and that’s what I concentrate on.

 

<Mr. Kong is illustrating his research field.>

 

You were one of the winners of Campus Patent Strategy Universiade, right?

 

Yes. The patent universiade is hosted by the Korean Intellectual Property Office and the National Academy of Engineering of Korea and is supervised by the Korea Invention Promotion Association. I won an encouragement award. Actually, I and my team members have participated in the patent universiade since 2011 but my team has won only encouragement awards for the past three years (smile).

 

You seem so interested in patents, right?

 

I’m very interested in technical commercialization. It helps businesses utilize technologies for products; we develop technologies available for commercialization and then transfer such technologies to businesses, instead of restricting such commercialization in the name of patent protection. It’s common that patent holders don’t allow the commercialization of patents which they never utilizes by others. But I think every technology should be utilized by somebody who needs it. I also think that the profits generated through technical commercialization should be invested in developing new technologies. This is what we call a virtuous circle.

 

Do you have any patent?

 

Thanks to my academic advisor and my fellow students in the research lab, I’ve applied for six patents in total including one I applied for yesterday. I take part in spirited discussions with my fellow students and my academic advisor in an atmosphere of freedom. And I also think my experience with the patent universiade was especially helpful. While I’m preparing myself for the patent universiade, I can develop my ability to figure out the overall picture of and process for how new technologies are developed and commercialized through analysis into existing technologies and market and design of avoidance technologies.

 

You donated part of your prize money to GIST’s Dreamfund. What makes you to arrive at such a decision?

 

Well, I didn’t donate much so such attention makes me embarrassed. Actually I realized studying was fun when I began my doctoral course at the GIST. Though I’m full of curiosity about various things, I think I finally developed my curiosity for study. Then I became thankful for the GIST as it is the optimal place where I can fully devote myself to study and research; I am thankful for everything I can use at GIST including dormitories and Married Student Apartment. I wanted to know how I can express my thanks and I decided to donate my money to GIST’s Dreamfund.

I think donation is an ‘activity’ to take pride in my school. As a student, having ‘interest’ in his/her school is important but what is more important is to put ‘interest’ into practice by an ‘activity.’ I’m sure that I can take more pride in my school through my donation as it can develop my school and bolster the reputation. I personally hope that more students have interest in Dreamfund and participate in donation.

 

What is your vision and plan for the future?

 

Sharing, I think. I’m interested in connecting technology customers and suppliers. Businesses in different fields could have technologies and patents in common which could be shared among them. But many of businesses don’t know about such technologies and patents, which results in their being neglected. I think a system to share technologies which their holders don’t use should be established. Of course such sharing won’t be easily done among competitors in the same field. But once a business is allowed to utilize a technology which its holder don’t utilize for free or a charge, the business could also share its technologies with others in the hope that it can get another technology which it needs in the future and it considers provision of technologies as investment. And the result of such investment could be the incentive to develop new technologies.

 

Is there any message you want to leave to the GIST?

 

The GIST and especially hearty support from faculty and staff are the source of my happiness. I take this opportunity to express my gratitude to the faculty and staff at GIST Graduate School for School of Information & Communications for devoting themselves to providing students with help from the perspective of students and to all faculty and staff at the GIST for giving careful advice and attention to students.