Climate change, Exhaustion of resources, Terrorism....The future of humanity has been increasingly threatened by the numerous kinds of challenges. Global communities has been struggling to resolve the issues, however, still have a long way to go. In recent years, impressive technological advances, called the 4th Industrial Revolution or Consciousness Revolution, has been made and adding new challenges to human societies.
The Korea Future Forum(KFF) is a knowledge sharing venue organized last year by News1, the leading news agency in South Korea, and the UN Future Forum, non-profit futurists’ association. The Forum was designed to help people be aware of various challenging trends and to equip them with ideas to exploit underlying changes in a desirable way.
The Forum that will be held on May every year in Seoul, is devoted to public roles to improve humanity’s abilities to build a better future by delivering better thinking ways and wisdom to get over current global challenges. The Forum which positioned itself as a future-oriented independent platform, does not represent or serve any particular interests of any kinds of organizations and ideologies.
Any changes always deliver opportunities as well as risks. If humanity fail to wisely respond to current transnational grand challenges, disastrous results will follow from the mistakes. Diverse experts from various cultures and organizations will engage in the Forum and try to provide well-balanced views to audience about how to deal with current global issues.
Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Self-driving cars, Internet of Things, Nanotechnology, Cryopreservation.... We are seeing the abundance of ‘exponential technologies’ that will alter fundamentally the ways of our lives and significantly disrupt existing industry landscape.
Big progress has been observed in AI in recent years, powered by increased computing power and availability of vast amount of data. Various kinds of AI has been emerging and revolutionizing manufacturing, working and discovery process. AI is considered to be a assistant for human as well as a rival to compete for jobs.
The Forum is focusing that hyper-connectivity became a key word in this era of transformation. Everything around us began to be interconnected through wider and faster communication systems. Also, it is true that hyper-connectivity is expected to amplify the depth and scope of current technological revolution. Self-driving eco-friendly cars equipped with AI, will be your moving home, cinema and office.
Thanks to rapid advances in bioscience, some futurists believe that we will be able to extend human lifespan radically, even indefinitely. To conquer diseases is just a part of story. They are speculating that aging is a curable disease, not an inevitable natural process occurring all of organism including humans.
We declare that the era of hyper-humanity is coming, in the meaning of enjoying the unprecedented opportunities provided by hyper-connectivity and exponential technologies in every ways of lives.
The Forum will deliver world’ foremost experts’ insights and thoughts to audience about what the future will look like and what to do.
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News1
News1
News1 is a news agency widely recognized as influential and innovative news media in South Korea established by MoneyToday Media group. About 300 journalists deliver every day more than 2000 real-time news and photos to our readers. Every day more than a million people visit our news pages through various channel including mobile phone. Recently, News 1 is surveyed as the second most popular news media at search portals with the longest duration of visits. Reuters and AFP are also our partners.
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MoneyToday Media Group
MoneyToday Media Group
MoneyToday Media Group has been recognized as the media organization which has posted the fasted growth in Korean media community since its foundation in 1999. MoneyToday which is acknowledged as one of the ‘Big 3 Economic Newspapers’, has maintained its status of most popuar media with the longest duration of visits in economic news sector. MoneyToday media group powered by outstanding business capabilities and sense of social mission, has successfully expanded its news channels into diverse categories. News 1 Korea is an another MoneyToday media group’s success story. MoneyToday group is surveyed as the 10th most influential media in Korea.
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The UN Future Forum
The UN Future Forum
The UN Future Forum is the Korean Node of The Millennium Project established in 2004 under the Korean Ministry of Strategy and Finance. The Millennium Project connects futurists around the world to improve global foresight. It was founded in 1996 after a three-year feasibility study with the United Nations University, Smithsonian Institution, Futures Group International, and the American Council for the UNU. It is now an independent non-profit global participatory futures research think tank of futurists, scholars, business planners, and policy makers who work for international organizations, governments, corporations, NGOs, and universities. The Millennium Project manages a coherent and cumulative process that collects and assesses judgments from over 3,500 people since the beginning of the project, selected by its 58 Nodes around the world. The work is distilled in the annual "State of the Future", "Futures Research Methodology" series, special studies, and integrated into its Global Futures Intelligence System.
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BaekKyu Lee
BaekKyu Lee
Baekkyu Lee is the CEO of News1 who originally worked as a journalist for about 10 years in Hankook-Ilbo, daily newspaper. He started his career in MoneyToday Media group since 2001 as one of the founding members. He worked successively as a head of editorial department, a New York correspondent, the chief editor, the vice- president and the president. Since early 2016, he has been demonstrating outstanding leadership as the CEO of News1 under the spirits of accuracy and integration.
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YoungSook Park
YoungSook Park
Youngsook Park has been a bold and brave pioneer personally and professionally in changing Korean perceptions of how a Korean woman should think and act in Korean society. Prof. Park became the first Korean woman to be an Information Officer at the British Embassy and served for 20 years. She founded the Korea Foster Care Association to protect children who can not live together his/her family. She has forged long lasting friendships with diverse world’s foremost futurists and delivered their findings to South Korean audience through publishing books and giving public lectures. She has been the Chair of south Korean Node of The Millennium Project and the World Future Society in Korea since 2004. She represents 18 different global futures research organizations from the world including WFS, MP, TechcastGlobal, etc. This year, she published the book, World Future Report 2055, with Jerome Glenn, Chairman of UN Millennium Project.