"Let's Respond Quickly in the Age of Artificial Intelligence!"... Pohang City Holds Breakfast Forum for Senior Officials

Inviting Professor Lee Kyungjun of Kyung Hee University on the 7th
Exploring the Flow of the AI Industry and the Role of Local Governments

Pohang City held a breakfast forum on the morning of the 7th in the City Hall’s main conference room, inviting Lee Kyungjun, Professor of Big Data Applications at Kyung Hee University, to speak to about 100 senior public officials on the topic of "AI Trends, the Korean Situation, and the Public Sector’s Response."

Pohang City hosted a breakfast forum on the theme "AI Trends, Korea's Situation, and Public Sector Response," inviting Professor Kyungjeon Lee from Kyung Hee University. Photo by Pohang City

This forum was organized to understand the flow of the AI industry, which is triggering a paradigm shift in all aspects of life as seen in the recent "DeepSeek shock" from China’s artificial intelligence (AI) model, and to seek directions for incorporating these trends into municipal administration.

Professor Lee Kyungjun earned his bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees from KAIST, and is recognized as a leading AI scholar in Korea, serving as Head of the Big Data Research Center at the National Research Foundation of Korea and President of the AI Research Society of the Korea Society of Management Information Systems, among other roles.

During the forum, he shared global policy trends in the race for AI dominance and introduced specific examples of how the emergence of ChatGPT has brought concrete changes to daily life and industry.

He particularly emphasized not only the ability to utilize AI itself but also the importance of developing public officials’ skills to enhance the quality of AI-generated outcomes and apply them to municipal administration.

Professor Lee Kyungjun stated, "AI requires not just simple technological development, but strategic cultivation that can be linked and expanded with application and demand industries," and suggested, "Only with the creation of a public-private partnership ecosystem can Pohang establish an innovative model that leads the global AI industry."

Kwon Hyukwon, Director of the Job and Economy Bureau, said, "For Pohang to rise beyond a steel city and become a world-leading city driving Korea’s new industries, fostering the AI industry is not a choice but a necessity," adding, "We will work to help Pohang become a global AI hub and join forces to accelerate Korea’s realization as an AI G3 powerhouse."

Pohang City is continuously working to share the latest trends in the AI field and enhance public officials’ competencies by holding special lectures by experts and practical training for public officials to advance the local AI industry and provide better administrative services using AI.