Asia-Pacific Business and Technology Report

July, 2009

“The Asia Institute Makes its Presence Felt”

There is a remarkable new think tank in Korea that is slowly making its presence felt through a focused approach to engagement in business, technology and policy: The Asia Institute. To start with, the Asia Institute is not located in Seoul, but rather in Daejeon, Korea’s center for science and technology. The reason for this decision is clear. The Asia Institute has thrown itself at addressing the pressing issues of our time: global warming, food sustainability, disease and nuclear nonproliferation. Science and technology will be at the heart of the solution to these problems, so it makes sense that a think tank grappling with those issues should be located in such a technology cluster. The Asia Institute has close working relations with research institutes, including the Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology (KRIBB), the Korea Institute for Nuclear Safety, the Korea Institute for Non-proliferation and Control, the National Nano Fabrication Center and Korea’s leading technical university, KAIST.

The Asia Institute brings to researchers and technicians a global perspective that can help to integrate their efforts into larger projects. Asia Institute experts in business and policy learn more about the detailed workings of technologies. When the Asia Institute’s experts in business and international relations talk with researchers working on genetic treatments for liver cancer at KRIBB, they get a first-hand perspective on contemporary biotechnology that most think tanks do not have. When the Asia Institute holds a seminar with engineers at the Korea Institute for Nuclear Safety, it offers a behind-the-scenes view of the technical aspects of the challenges of nuclear power. SolBridge’s Alp Malazgirt, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, remarked, “The Asia Institute is an outstanding forum for engaging in business, technology and policy. We can debate with leaders in the field, challenge assumptions and dream of what is possible. The range of topics is not limited to the political or the economic, but plunges deep into the technical – which is near and dear to me.” Recent Asia Institute events have brought leading figures from Georgia Tech, the Nautilus Institute, Stanford University and Tsinghua University to engage in this hands-on policy discussion.