The GIST Board held a meeting on July 4 to finally elect Dr. Gi-Cheol Lim as the ninth president.
The new president, Lim began his term of office on July 7 after being approved by the Minister of Science and ICT. The term of office is four years.
He received a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Seoul National University and a master’s degree in engineering Ph.D. from the same university’s graduate school. Also, he received a master’s degree in economics from Sogang University. He has worked as a visiting faculty at the Institute for International Science and Technology Policy at George Washington University(IISTP) in the United States, as Deputy Minister for Planning and Coordination and Vice President at the Institute for Science and Technology Policy, and as science and technology secretary of the Blue House. Afterward, he has served as a member of the Presidium of the National Science and Technology Commission, Director of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Evaluation and Planning, and Vice President of the Korea Federation of Science and Technology Societies. He also served as a collaboration professor at Korea University’s Graduate School of Management of Technology.
On August 16, GIST held the inauguration ceremony of the ninth president of GIST at the Dasan Hall of the Oryong Hall. In his inaugural address, he showed a strong commitment to innovation, saying, “Our potential is limitless, and we set our limits.”, “Innovation, if there is no way, we make it.” and “I will accompany you on the journey of innovation as a guide with the enormous responsibility of being president.” He proposed three strategies for innovation : strengthening GIST’s potential capabilities and restructuring the value-creating organization, fostering community spirit through leadership of sympathy and embracement, and establishing a system that converts the knowledge value of GIST into business value.
As an institute of science and technology established by the state, the values and goals that GIST should have were explained by taking the acronym of GIST. G is for the creation of Global knowledge assets, and I is for technological Innovation with insight. S is for conducting a Study to overcome national crises, and T is for caring and Trust-based organizational culture and research activities.
He said, “In this spirit, GIST’s research results will continue to entrepreneurship and innovation, contributing to the development of the local economy and the national economy.”
His goals during his term of office include ▲becoming one of the top 100 in the QS World University Rankings and one of the top 7 in Korea’s ▲transition to education, which seeks truth with the centered ▲establishment of semiconductor FAB ▲establishment of AI graduate school of policy and strategy ▲establishment of GIST branches in Korea or overseas ▲establishing a holding company ‘GIST Holdings’ to attract start-ups and encourage cooperation with companies in the region.
In particular, he emphasized that he would create a 20 billion development fund within his term of office to sow the seeds of the birth of the research and medical equipment industry in Gwangju and Jeonnam and make it a growth engine at the national level. In addition, he said that he would lead GIST to establish itself as a central AI institution in Asia.
On the other hand, this inauguration ceremony was held in a simplified manner. The budget saved through this will be put into support for the thousand-won breakfast business.
