The 9th Small and Medium Business Technology Innovation Daejeon Award

The Small and Medium Business Administration will announce the enumeration of 104 persons (organizations), including 78 prominent technology innovators and 26 technology innovation awards winners at the 9th SME Innovation Competition, which will be held at the COEX Pacific Hall on October 23^rd.

Kim Jong-joon, CEO of GigaVis Co., Ltd., will be the highest honoree among the listed. CEO Kim has developed the world’s first automated optical inspection system that can automatically detect defects in semiconductor circuit boards with a circuit width of 8 micrometers, resulting in an export of 20.3 billion won. He is a CEO with a strong engineer background.

In particular, Mr. Kim will be recognized for contributing to the development of the national industry, including 3.3 times of sales growth and 2.7 times of employment increase compared to 2005, despite difficult management environment both abroad and domestic.

Industrial packaging is won by Lee Gil-hun, CEO of DIGEN Co., Ltd., a leading industrial digital printer manufacturer. Over the past 30 years, Lee has devoted himself to developing design automation technology in the industrial field. As a result, he has developed sales of 36.6 billion won in sales and 10 million dollars in exports last year through the development of digital printer capable of direct printing such as paper.

Meanwhile, Ino Wireless Co., Ltd. (Presidential Award) is awarded the grand prize in technology innovation award for small and medium-sized enterprises that have developed new technologies and new products with great technological and economic ripple effects. Inno Wireless succeeded in developing the world’s first mobile WiMAX measuring instrument, the next generation wireless Internet communication technology, and securing the base technology of the mobile communication instrument which had been dependent on import. This technology was selected as a next-generation first-class product in 2007.

A total of 20 SME technology and investment related institutions, including the Technology Guarantee Fund, the Korea Technology Transfer Center, the Korea Technology Exchange, and the commercial banks, partook in the selection process and was confirmed in April

Daejeon = Lee Kwon-hyeong reporter (kwonhl@heraldm.com)