G-Dragon completes his extraordinary career again... KAIST Professor Appointed

KAIST (President Lee Kwang-hyung) announced on the 5th that it had appointed singer G-Dragon (real name Kwon Ji-yong) as a visiting professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. The awarding of the letter of appointment to Jiyong Kwon was held at the 'Innovate Korea 2024' event held at the KAIST Sports Complex on the morning of the 5th.

This appointment was promoted to expand the global competitiveness of Korean culture by applying the latest scientific technology developed at KAIST to K-content and the cultural industry.

An official from Galaxy Corporation, Kwon Ji-yong's agency, said, "Through this appointment, we expect to contribute to market innovation through entertainment research and development and the global spread and growth of K-culture."

Entertech is a compound word of entertainment and technology, and refers to an industry that creates new added value by combining ICT with intellectual property rights (IP) and content, which are the core values of entertainment.

Professor Jiyong Kwon said, “It is an honor to be a visiting professor at KAIST, where many scientific geniuses are produced. I look forward to a great synergy, or ‘big bang,’ by meeting the best science and technology experts and my entertainment specialty.”

He continued, “The number of people working with artificial intelligence in the music field is also increasing, and these cutting-edge technologies enable more diverse forms of creative work.” He continued, “Through the artificial intelligence avatar developed jointly by Galaxy Corporation and KAIST, we meet people often. He expressed his specific wish, saying, “I want to communicate more closely with fans around the world who cannot.”

Invited Professor Jiyong Kwon is scheduled to give a special lecture on leadership for undergraduate and graduate students. The purpose is to share the experience and life of a world-class artist to provide KAIST students with vision and insight into the world, as well as challenges and inspiration to pioneer their own fields.

In addition, we plan to hold cultural events to communicate with KAIST members and provide artistic experiences necessary to grow into creative and convergent talents.

We are also pursuing joint research that applies KAIST's various technologies to art and cultural content. ʻKAIST-Galaxy Corporation Entertech Research Center (tentative name)’ was established within the Department of Mechanical Engineering, ▲Digital Twin technology research targeting Korean Wave artists, starting with G-Dragon himself, ▲K-Culture, artificial intelligence, robots, Research on the convergence of science and technology such as Metaverse ▲ Research will be conducted on the development of differentiated artist avatars using the latest technologies such as volumetrics, motion capture, and haptics.

Choi Ji-ye, Ten Asia Reporter wisdomart@tenasia.co.kr