Part two of five covering last Friday’s Investment Seminar.
The second presentation of the day, titled “Nanotech: Opening a Great New World”, was given by Dr. Lee Jo-won, Director of ‘The National Program for Tera-level Nano devices‘.
Dr. Lee presents on Nanotechnology
The presentation started from the very basics, explaining what nanotechnology actually means – “Nanotechnology“ is a combination of 3 Greek words – nano (meaning dwarf/tiny), techne (skill/craft), and logos (science).
Going on to say, that nanotechnology is the science of making or working with things that are so small that they are only seen through a high-powered microscope.
With the prefix ‘nano’ referring to the size 10(-9) or 0.000000001.
Dr. Lee offered examples from the natural world – such as the structures of geckos feet hair, which enables them to stick to walls.
Understanding these structures could lead to products replicating spider-man like abilities, among more practical applications.
Magnified photo of the hairs on a geckos feet
Asking the question- why do we need nanotechnology?
Dr. Lee answered by explaining nanotech’s cability to cure illness, reduce famine and environmental damage, and halt the depletion of nature resources.
Backing this up, the presenter highlighted various global projects, including:
- The development of a new cell phone charger which uses a nano generator.
- A US university’s announcement that they found a method to make methane gas from CO₂ using nano tubes and sunlight.
- A German developed cure of prostate cancer using nano iron oxide,
- And a robot capsule equipped with a nano camera that can transmit pictures from inside the patient’s body.
Mobile phone charger that uses nanotechnology
Due to the wide array of applications and deep ranging effects, industry analysts and research companies estimate the nanotech global market will be worth upwards of US$2 trillion by 2015 -
Nanotech's Global Market Size Forecasts (Source: Tera Level Nano Devices)
The presentation also looked at the progress of Korea’s nanotech industry, breaking down the 368 commercialized nanotechnology related products between 2004-2008 -
(Source: Tera Level Nano Devices)
Finally, presenting a table from a Lux Research Report showing that Korea’s technology strength is world leading, whereas the nation’s nanotech activity only lags a few -
(Lux Research Report on nanotech activity and strength)
The materials remain the property of Tera Level Nano Devices and should not be reproduced without their written permission.
For more information on the presentation, opportunities within Korea’s nanotech industry, or about other upcoming events please contact Ms. Soomin Lee on +82-2-3460-7539, or at investment@kotra.or.kr.
(Translating by Han Doo-hee)
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