[2022.12.14] "Software that brings things to life..."Real SW development only when the value is spread."
- SKKU National Program of Excellence in Software
- Hit1440
- 2022-12-15
"It is the era of the 4th industrial revolution, but many people still do not know that SW is important. To share with the community, I spread SW values and volunteered abroad."
"By automating software (SW) testing and debugging, we challenge to the brink of God's realm." Lee Eun-seok, dean of Sungkyunkwan University's SW Convergence University, made the following remarks about the future SW vision. On the 28th of last month, Dean Lee stressed the need to improve the inefficiency of SW development. He said, "70% of the total cost will be spent on testing and debugging to check SW quality. Automating this process will allow those people to focus on more creative code development." Testing and debugging are SW development process that seeks to prevent the malfunction of the program by finding defects hidden in the code. Dean Lee delivered the project experience of analyzing 200,000 SW codes.
Dean Lee Eun-seok studied electronic engineering at Sungkyunkwan University and received a doctorate in information engineering from Tohoku University in Japan. Dean Lee worked as a research scientist at the Mitsubishi Information and Electronics Research Center and served as an assistant professor at Tohoku University.
Dean Lee received his doctorate from Tohoku University in Japan and worked in Mitsubishi. What is Japan's corporate culture like? At that time, there were seven Japanese companies out of the 10 global rankings. I was surprised to see him work again after 15 minutes of lunch." When he was having a hard time due to a tight schedule, the head of the department brought a baseball glove and listened to the story while playing with the catch ball. Japanese companies have a clear distinction in construction. Even when I went to the company workshop, I moved after a day's work and discussed it all night. "In Japan, I was stepping on the ground, but when I returned to Korea, I felt like I was floating in the air as if I were doing something unbasic. In a changing world, we need a balance of justification and practicality, but I think justification is important to the extent that practicality allows." Japan's global companies are on the decline afterward. There may be many causes, but the lack of convergence capabilities to "accept differences" seems to be one of the reasons.
A failed project 20 years ago, it's still a shame
Dean Lee has been living as a SW engineer and researcher for more than 40 years. In particular, he told me about a memorable experience that was a turning point in his life. During the difficult times of the foreign exchange crisis, I once performed the task of Japan's Sony company, which was the world's No. 1 company at the time. It was to improve the SW development process and develop integrated tools to support the process. However, the process improvement work was successful, but the level of the tool developed was not. This is because the language Java, which was not very complete at the time, was used in consideration of the ease of maintenance in the future. I had to work on creating a library that was insufficient one by one. I think it's a failed project, and even now, 20 years later, it's always a debt in my mind." Since then, the dean has renewed his mindset as an engineer for a project that does not fail.
If so, what is SW and why is it important? Dean Lee said, "If the scope of HW (hardware) expands to all objects, it can be said that SW eventually brings life to objects," adding, "All existing objects must play their roles properly, be connected and linked as needed, and integrity must be guaranteed in the process, all of which are based on high-quality SW." He said, "In the end, SW is important because it is the only force that can be maintained in all human societies and universes, perhaps it is God's domain that is outside the scope of SW."
Quality SW for connection and operation
However, there is a so-called "miss matching," which says that college students only find good jobs and that companies do not have the talent to use. How is Sungkyunkwan University's SW Convergence University making efforts to acquire the capabilities, experience, and personality required by companies? “Our university is conducting rigorous operations and evaluations of major subjects to foster basic skills. When designing a subject, it is emphasized that it sufficiently reflects the latest technologies and trends.”
In particular, Dean Lee said that internships and industry-academic projects are essential for all students to develop a sense of field that is difficult to fill with just subject classes and learn important skills such as communication and collaboration.
Sungkyunkwan University's SW-centered university project group collaborates with 27 companies annually. Since this project is operated with taxpayers' money, efforts are being made to return it to the community. Among them are bio and financial companies. Students learn the field by experiencing internships at companies. For companies, they work with students and make up for the shortage of manpower. However, small and medium-sized companies have difficulties because college students prefer only large companies after internship. It is a lack of continuity. For this reason, it is intended to alleviate corporate grievances by continuing internship experience of "6 months + 6 months."
In addition, Dean Lee emphasizes commitment, contribution, and sharing with the surrounding community. The spread of SW value and overseas volunteer work are also part of the plan. Therefore, the dean also emphasizes SW start-ups to students. Dean Lee himself is planning to start a business as a 'smart feedback system' for elementary and secondary SW education.
SW Developers, Long-term education policy comes first
On the other hand, in Korea, manufacturing or hardware-oriented industrial development is still recognized as a national growth engine. What are the systems to increase SW power? Dean Lee said, "The importance of SW is emerging in the era of the 4th industrial revolution, but this fact is not properly recognized by people yet. Currently, global materials, parts, and equipment manufacturing industries, as well as service industries, are making efforts to secure SW developers, but it is not enough." “It can be seen how much effort companies are making to compete for ‘invite SW developers’ in securing excellent SW developers centered on traditional tech industries even in the cold weather of investment. It is very urgent to cultivate SW developers who have properly acquired the basics of the SW field from elementary and secondary education. " This means that SW education based on long-term education policies is needed.
"Never relaxed or elegant." Lee said, "When I enter a university, I realize how hard and struggling professors are in poor conditions." Dean Lee said, "University should fulfill its role as a convergence platform that organically links the government, industry, and research institutes. Ideally, it is also necessary to flexibly link the educational and industrial sites." Dean Lee suggested, "In order for universities to survive, university resources, knowledge, and experience must be shared to enable social contribution."
Sungkyunkwan University's SW Convergence University Designs the Future
"Our strength is that we are sincere about student success"
SW University was established in 2015 and reorganized into SW Convergence University in 2021. Sungkyunkwan University was selected as the first stage of the SW-centered university project (September 2015 to February 2021) for the first time in the country. Since then, it has been selected consecutively in the second stage (March 2021 to December 2026). Currently, 44 universities are participating in the SW-centered university project.
In November last year, Lee Eun-seok, dean of Sungkyunkwan University's SW Convergence University, is fighting for "student success" with students from the student council and club association.
All students are required to complete SW-AI education from a minimum of 9 credits to a maximum of 17 credits as a graduation requirement. SW majors will strengthen their capabilities, and non-major will complete SW-based convergence education. To this end, the Department of Global Convergence was newly added in the SW monology system. Dean Lee cited "sincerity" as the strength of Sungkyunkwan University's SW Convergence University. "The sincerity of student education and student success is our code of conduct toward authenticity," he said. "The core foundation of the design and operation of various educational programs, physical structural transformation, and major decision-making at university headquarters or colleges is based on that authenticity."
Sungkyunkwan University does not strengthen SW education only for students. About 100 professors receive AI education every year. Professors of all colleges, including humanities and social studies universities, medical schools, biotechnology universities, science colleges, study abroad universities, and business and economics universities, will strive and cooperate to strengthen SW capabilities. As a result, a professor in the Department of New Material Engineering developed an "electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (a method of measuring the internal resistance of a battery)" using machine learning technology.
In October, Lee Eun-seok, dean of Sungkyunkwan University's SW Convergence University, expressed his feelings about the student council and club association's 2022 activity performance and 2023 activity plan.
"SW development is a comprehensive study and is closer to art than technology." Regarding the educational knowledge of Sungkyunkwan University's SW Convergence University, Lee stressed, "To become a good SW engineer, we need to understand not only the ability to develop applications in various fields, but also business goals, processes, and applications to society or operating organizations." To this end, Sungkyunkwan University's SW Convergence University encourages students by preparing internships, industry-academic projects, and large-scale open-source analysis as graduation requirements. Dean Lee said, "I want you to experience the importance of communication and collaboration that is essential to becoming a competitive engineer."
Source: Kyosu Shinmun (http://www.kyosu.net)