Emanuel Pastreich & Ray Kurzweil Deliver Keynote Speeches at RISE: Research, Innovation, Start-up and Employment Conference | The Asia Institute

RISE: Research, Innovation, Start-up and Employment

Korea Science and ICT Conference 2013

COEX, Seoul, Korea

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Presented by

The Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning

Sponsored by

KOSA, AhnLab, SK Telecom, KT, LG U+, Samsung Electronics, KISIA, TTA, RAPA, KAIT, KICA.

The Ministry of Science, ICT and Planning will hold the Korea Science and ICT Conference 2013 on the theme of “Research, Innovation, Start-up and Employment” (hereafter “RISE”). The purpose of this Conference is to realize national growth and job expansion by encouraging the establishment of start-ups and ventures, and to lay a foundation for industrial development and economic growth through research and development in science technology and ICT.

Keynote Speeches

9:30-11:40 AM

First Keynote Speech

Ray Kurzweil, Director of Engineering, Google, USA

RAY KURZWEIL is one of the world’s leading inventors, thinkers, and futurists, with a thirty-year track record of accurate predictions. Called “the restless genius” by The Wall Street Journal and “the ultimate thinking machine” by Forbes magazine, Kurzweil was selected as one of the top entrepreneurs by Inc. magazine, which described him as the “rightful heir to Thomas Edison.” PBS selected him as one of the “sixteen revolutionaries who made America.” Kurzweil was the principal inventor of the first CCD flat-bed scanner, the first omni-font optical character recognition, the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind, the first text-to-speech synthesizer, the first music synthesizer capable of recreating the grand piano and other orchestral instruments, and the first commercially marketed large-vocabulary speech recognition. Among Kurzweil’s many honors, he is the recipient of the National Medal of Technology, was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, holds nineteen honorary Doctorates, and honors from three U.S. presidents. Ray has written seven books, five of which have been national best sellers. The Singularity is Near and Ray’s latest book How to Create a Mind have been New York Times Bestsellers. Ray was recently appointed Director of Engineering at Google.

Second Keynote Speech

Emanuel Pastreich

Professor, College of International Studies at Kyung Hee University

Director, The Asia Institute


Emanuel Pastreich is professor at the College International Studies at Kyung Hee University and director of the Asia Institute in Seoul. His current research is divided between his work on technology and its impact on society and the impact of the Chinese literary tradition in Korea and Japan.

Pastreich founded the Asia Institute in 2007, a think tank that coordinates research between experts in Asia and the rest of the world on the intersection of technology, the environment and international relations. Programs run by The Asia Institute include: the Korea India Business and Technology Initiative (with the Indo-Korea Business and Policy Forum), the Biotechnology Initiative, the Nuclear Power Program, 3E (Environment, Energy, Economy) Program, the Asia Ecocity Coalition (with Ecocity Builders) and the Convergence Technology Program.

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