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The Ambitious Korea

The robots who care for dementia patients and movie downloads in a second. This is the future that South Korea is investing in. Peter Day reports.

South Korea has rapidly become one of the most advanced internet connected places in the world, with the fastest connections. Early on, it was the government that identified the benefits this would have for businesses and invested significantly in the infrastructure needed. This meant South Koreans were early adopters of voip-calling, a forefather of services such as Skype, and created the first social network in the world. But, they say, they failed to export these businesses because the rest of the world’s internet was too slow.

Korea is now focusing on 5G or fifth generation mobile – aiming to be world leaders in this technology by 2020. It would enable movies to be downloaded in a second for example and transmit live holograms of people.

Another sector the South Korean government is hedging its bets on as an area of growth is service robotics. This programme explores the brave new world of robots looking after autistic children and dementia patients, as well as being a common feature in our homes.

Available now

29 minutes

Last on

Wed 19 Mar 2014 15:32GMT

Contributors to this programme

Youngnam Han

Professor of Electrical Engineering at KAIST, the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology and Chairman of the Korea 5G Forum

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Alex Jinsung Choi

Executive Vice President R&D Division, SK Telecom

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Hyun-Sub Park

Korea Evaluation Institute of Industrial Technology

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Kim Mun Sang

Principal Researcher, Centre for Bionics at KIST, the Korea Institute of Science and Technology

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Dr IH Luke Park

Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Kyungpook National University

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Ryew Sung Moo

Chief Technical Officer, KNR Systems

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Broadcasts

  • Sun 16 Mar 2014 11:32GMT
  • Wed 19 Mar 2014 00:32GMT
  • Wed 19 Mar 2014 04:32GMT
  • Wed 19 Mar 2014 15:32GMT

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