KAIST President Nam Pyo Suh was invited as a main speaker to an international symposium held at Tsinghua University from November 5 to 7.

 

The symposium, hosted by the Chinese Academy of Engineering, was held for the discussion of cutting edge digital designs and production skills. Participants included 18 scholars from the fields of mechanical and vehicles engineering from seven different countries including the US, England and Germany. One significant fact to note is that President Suh was the only representative from South Korea.

 

President Suh's presentation was about the "Design and Manufacture of a Large Complex System." During his presentation, he talked about his experiences designing and producing the next generation of green car, "OLEV" (On-Line Electric Vehicle). He talked in great detail about the stages involved between making the preliminary designs and building the final product. As an introduction, he explained his methods of thoroughly investigating the Electric Vehicle's demands before working on the core designs and production. There were many variables to consider including obtaining research funds, investigating legal matters, using and distributing patents and planning for commercialization. President Suh moved on to how most of these complicated processes were solved efficiently by the application of his axiomatic design process theory and how it was possible to move from the conceptual stage to the practical stage in a relatively short period of time.

 

According to KAIST, "The spotlight is on China as the world's economic center. It holds great value and significance for President Suh to be invited as the main speaker for this international symposium. It shows that the design and production experiences from large scale sophisticated systems like KAIST's OLEV are highly valued."

 

OLEV is recognized internationally for its technological significance. Despite its relatively short development period of only two years, OLEV was nominated as one of TIME's "50 Best Inventions of 2010." OLEV allows the current limitations of Electric Vehicles to be overcome and encourages faster commercialization of future Electric Vehicles. Therefore with the contributions it has made, it is earning its name as a "disruptive technology."