KAIST celebrates its 40th anniversary as the research institute with a goal of becoming the world’s best. On February 16, KAIST President Nam Pyo Suh, along with members of the student body, faculty and administration attended the celebratory ceremony that took place at the Main Auditorium, starting at 11a.m.

At the event, professors nominated for five categories that consisted of academics, creative teaching, outstanding teaching, international cooperation and research were recognized for their contributions. The awardees were Professors Eunjoon Kim and Walton Jones of the Department of Biological Sciences, Professor Abigail Shin of the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Professor Sung-Chul Shin of the Department of Physics and Professor Sang Yup Lee of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Each winner was presented with 5,000,000 won. There also were other awards given out at the proceedings, including awards for outstanding students, staff and partners of KAIST.

Professor Junehwa Song of the Department of Computer Science was selected for the New Intellectual Award. Professor Song earned this honor through his development of “Orchestrator,” a creative, new mobile platform. “Orchestrator” is Professor Song’s response to expectations for smartphones to dominate mobile services in the near future and unlike Google’s Android or Apple’s IOS, provides a dynamic and flowing relationship between the user, phone and environment. It is expected to serve as a base to serve newly-created application programs in numerous fields.

KAIST also celebrated its 40th anniversary with a new emblem for the occasion. The new emblem, the shape of which resembles a star, symbolizes not only the determination that KAIST has shown, and will continue to show, in becoming a global institution, but also its hopes of playing a leadership role. The keywords considered when making the emblem included Leadership, Premium, Scientific and Humanity.

From May 9 to 14, KAIST will hold various festivities to celebrate the anniversary, beginning with the Vision Proclamation.