Thursday, May 16th, 2013
SEOUL, KOREA - Choi Yang-hee, professor of computer engineering at Seoul National University and the new appointee to head the Samsung Future Technology Foundation, said on May 14, "The corporate role in leading future technology development is indispensable." He held a briefing session on the same day at Samsung's headquarters in Seoul's Gangnam and stressed, "Although the foundation was created with the private initiative of Samsung, it is a research foundation with a public goods role whose precedence can't be found anywhere else in the world."
Earlier on the 13th, Samsung Group had announced that it would invest up to 1.5 trillion won for the next ten years to establish a foundation that would lead the nation's quest for technology excellence.
"From the viewpoint of Samsung, the foundation is entirely part of corporate social responsibility activities. Even though the money comes from Samsung, the foundation will be totally independent from the group," he added. For example, the company won't be involved in setting research agendas or selecting research groups. The intellectual property rights to research output will accordingly belong to the researchers, not to Samsung nor the foundation.