Interview with Choi Sam-rak, Head of IT Development at Woongjin ThinkBig
Leading R&D in IT Development and Edutech
Two-time CES Innovation Award Winner with 'ARpedia'
"Aiming to be the first successful 'K-Edutech' company in the global market"
[Asia Economy Reporter Kwak Minjae] "While other education companies have pushed for the digital transformation of some content, Woongjin ThinkBig made a resolute decision to fully digitize its core content?the book business?with a desperate mindset of cutting off the bridge back. This digitization of content led to the accumulation of high-quality data, which ultimately resulted in the advancement of Woongjin’s strength in big data-based edutech today."
Choi Samrak, Head of IT Development at Woongjin ThinkBig, said this in an interview with Asia Economy on the 5th, explaining the background of the company’s edutech success. He pointed to the high-quality ‘data’ generated from about 500,000 paid members as the core of Woongjin ThinkBig’s edutech. A representative example is the launch of the educational platform ‘SmartAll,’ which applies AI algorithms that automatically analyze children’s learning patterns by utilizing Woongjin’s learning data in partnership with Kidaptive, an AI education company from Silicon Valley. Going beyond simply putting worksheets on tablets, SmartAll offers personalized learning that considers each learner’s ability and environment based on big data, and the number of SmartAll members has exceeded 220,000 this year.
Both Woongjin Book Club and Smart ThinkBig, which form the base of the 500,000 paid members, were created within the IT Development Office where Choi is stationed. Choi joined Woongjin ThinkBig in 1999 and has been the head of the IT Development Office since 2016, witnessing the history of edutech firsthand. The IT Development Office at Woongjin ThinkBig oversees research and development (R&D) related to edutech and plays a central role in the edutech business together with the AI-specialized research organization, the ‘Edutech Research Institute.’ Woongjin ThinkBig is known to invest the most in edutech within the industry, spending 33 billion KRW on R&D last year alone, which accounted for 4.06% of total sales. As of the end of last year, the IT Development Office held 34 patents related to edutech, one of the highest numbers in the industry.
Despite the steady decline in the school-age population due to low birth rates, Woongjin ThinkBig is expected to achieve record-high sales this year with 970.4 billion KRW in revenue and 32.1 billion KRW in operating profit. This is because it has enhanced the value of digital educational content by integrating advanced technologies such as AI, metaverse (extended virtual world), and augmented reality (AR) into the education sector. Open innovation, which involves partnering with startups possessing technologies like AI, AR, and metaverse, is also actively underway to transition into a platform company. Collaborating with AI education solution provider Riiid, Woongjin created ‘AI Learning Center English’ within the middle school online course ‘Woongjin SmartAll Middle School.’ AR partnerships include Artizen Space, and metaverse collaborations include Seers Lab. Woongjin ThinkBig operates the ‘SmartAll Metaverse’ service within Woongjin SmartAll, featuring virtual classrooms, libraries, art galleries, playgrounds, and more.
Choi explained, "New customers who use only the digital learning material SmartAll without visiting instructors have appeared, and content that allows students to experience various facilities such as libraries and art galleries through metaverse has emerged. This new market, which breaks away from worksheets that have accounted for about 30% of the domestic education market, continues to expand."
The AR technology-based reading learning platform ‘ARpedia,’ which has been evaluated as presenting development potential for existing education and publishing media to overseas companies, was also born in the IT Development Office. This product uses a camera on the top of a tablet PC developed in-house to recognize an open book and display graphics matching the content. Through this product, Woongjin ThinkBig became the first domestic education company to win the CES Innovation Award twice consecutively at the world’s largest electronics and IT exhibition.
Woongjin ThinkBig aims to become the first successful ‘K-Edutech’ company in the global market. Choi said, "The reason there are not many successful cases of domestic education companies in the global market is, I believe, the difficulty of localizing Korean content. Rather, Woongjin ThinkBig’s approach of providing the tech-based ARpedia platform globally while producing content locally is expected to be competitive in overseas markets including North America," expressing his ambition.
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