On August 28, 2012 a presentable delegation of the government of the Republic of Korea, headed by the Minister of strategy and finance, visited Skolkovo’s technopark.
The minister began his visit with the technopark residents’ offices, "Sputniks", a Skolkovo resident, which develops micro-satellites technology, “Geonodal Solutions”, company, which deals with cutting edge technologies of offshore oil and gas exploration. The Korean delegation was also shown a 3D presentation of the Innovation City, made by “Vizerra”, which makes 3D presentations for complex construction and development projects.
Mr. Jae Wan expressed his deep confidence that the Skolkovo foundation, as well as those selected technologies he saw in the technopark, "have a great future, including commercialization perspectives", the minister said.
"We in Korea are very impressed with the scientific achievements of Russia and in fact in some areas, such as fundamental, basic science, we believe that Korea finds itself far behind Russia", the minister said.
Bahk Jae Wan appealed to move ahead with cooperation between the Skolkovo foundation and Korean companies, “to move from memorandums of understandings (MoUs) to action, and for this it is necessary first of all to develop a detailed road map", the minister said.
"South Korea, reminded the minister, has such a competitive advantage as the experience of conversion of technologies into business”, the minister said. “We believe that with Skolkovo we have a huge space for development of cooperation in this area, and this meeting could be a starting point for this cooperation", Bahk Jae Wan said.
Responding to the call of the Korean high-guest "to proceed from MoUs to actions Alexei Beltyukov, the senior vice president for development and commercialization, said that the first step in this direction should be to appoint a person, who will be in charge of this issues and announced that such a person, responsible for development of cooperation with South Korea would be Sergey Kurilov, director of Technopark "Skolkovo".
Alexei Beltyukov also said that twenty international companies have already decided to open their R&D centers in the technopark. The senior vice president of Skolkovo also reminded that there are forty accredited venture capital funds, which already work at Skolkovo, and that “the Foundation welcomes South Korean investment funds of any property to invest in Skolkovo residents”.
Bahk Jae Wan stressed that the Republic of Korea is particularly interested in development of cooperation in the area of fundamental sciences. "At 140 kilometers from Seoul we also create a science park, which will be focused just on basic research and invite Skolkovo to cooperate there”, he said. The Minister of strategy and finance of the Republic of Korea in his closing remarks noted that "the science city Skolkovo", as he put it, made it a very good impression on him and upon his return home he will share this positive opinion with the people of the South Korea.
"I believe that Skolkovo will succeed, and I will bring this perspective to companies and research institutions of the Republic of Korea", Bahk Jae Wan said.
"Both sides expect concrete steps after this meeting”, Alexey Beltyukov said. “We have assigned responsibilities on our part and will further develop a plan of action, and I hope that soon we’ll see among our partners in the technopark a Korean company”. “Forms of cooperation can be different: it could be an R&D center, a venture fund that will work here, or a subsidiary, which will be a resident of Technopark", said Alexey Beltyukov.
The Korean delegation included the Ambassador of the Republic of Korea in Russia Wi Sung Lak, as well as heads of the Ministry of education, science and technology, the Ministry of knowledge economy, Ministry of land and sea transport. The delegation arrived to Moscow to attend the meeting of the Russian-Korean intergovernmental commission on economic and scientific-technical cooperation (IPC), which also took place on Tuesday, August 28. And, as in a brief interview to Sk.ru Bahk Jae Wan said, a decision that the delegation should also visit Skolkovo was made by him a month ago, when he attended one of the bilateral meetings and saw a presentation of Skolkovo there.