Korea

 

Institution short profile
The Institute for Graphic Interfaces, IGI, is a non-profit private research enterprise with the goal to develop world-class customer-oriented research and development.

Its history started in 1999 with the establishment of the Institute for NEW MEDIA Technology, NEMETech, a joint venture between the Ewha Womans University, Korea, and the INI-GraphicsNet Foundation, Germany. Registered in Korea as a corporate foundation and incorporated as a new member of the international network INI-GraphicsNet, NEMETech had the overall goal of evolving the scientific excellence and international prestige of both institutions by combining experiences and developing cooperation projects. Such jointeffort would foster technological innovation and generate knowledge to the benefit of the project contractors, development partners, and society in general.

Since then, this partnership and cooperation have been successfully exercised in technical projects and by the exchange of researchers and students within the partnership network.

More recently, NEMETech, was honored by assigned by its founding partners and the Fraunhofer-Institut für Graphische Datenverarbeitung, IGD, Germany, to conduct strategic research and development (R&D) within a major agreement involving the former and two Korean governmental institutions.

This agreement, in full – “International Joint Research Agreement” –, signed on the 17th of May 2004, was accorded between the Korean Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC), Korea Institute for Technology Assessment (IITA), and the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft (acting on behalf of Fraunhofer IGD) and INI-GraphicsNet Foundation as part of the Korean government program to foster international cooperations for developing cutting-edge information and communication technologies in Korea.

On assuming this new role and new technical orientations, NEMETech was renamed Institute for Graphic Interface, and this will concentrate its technological competencies in two major ICT areas: intelligent manufacturing systems, and information security and assurance systems.

These topics were selected due to their relevance to the market not only in present times but also in a longterm perspective following technological evolutions and business and social tendencies. The choice for the first topic is based on the high-demand for ICT in modern manufacturing industries, which are increasingly forming crossnational production communities, and in order to stay abreast in the hard competition in the global market. The second topic was selected due to the growing employment of electronic services and data records in business and public affairs and the need to protect the digital contents and data flows. A similarly important aspect, regarding these choices, refers to the ‘world-dimension’ of the potential market and the opportunity to serve several application areas and prospective users with the same core technology.

The renowned technological excellence of the project partners, including that from other development partners such as the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), Korea, will foster the development of world-class joint research and products within a relatively short time not only for the domestic, but also for the international market. Furthermore, proven competences in services related to technology transfer will support the market-oriented character of the business model and the dissemination and exploitation of the research findings. IGI’s customers will profit from a reliable partner and solutions.

The research team is being progressively composed of highly qualified German and Korean researchers, engineers and designers. In addition, according to the projects, research assistants will also join the team, where they will have the opportunity to gain valuable experience in working in industry-oriented projects. The technical competences of all of those collaborators will also be advanced with project management skills and the work in multinational, multidisciplinary teams.

Besides providing challenging opportunities for qualified professionals, IGI will raise also positive prospects for local small and medium technology providers by means of further collaborations. Through the new R&D center, Korea can reinforce existing and reach leading positions in the international ICT community and worldwide market.

Partnerships
The motivation for cooperation is based on the idea that individual excellence and distinct expertise put together lead to individual improvements, a collective strength, and an overall better quality work. Cooperation enables exchanges, complementarities, and synergy of knowledge, ideas, and experience.

In the case of IGI, it was born from a long-term institutional arrangement between two partner institutions sharing similar vision and pursuit, and later, this alliance was positively extended with further partners and respective networks, leading to an ex-tended network of excellence.

Fraunhofer IGD building in Darmstadt..

Founding Partners
Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, Fraunhofer-Institut für Graphische Datenverarbeitung
The Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft (Fraunhofer Society) is Germany’s leading organization for applied research in numerous scientific and engineering disciplines, undertaking contract research on behalf of industrial companies, the service sector, and governmental agencies.

The INI-GraphicsNet constitution and its business orientation.

Committed to its role as an innovative driving force supporting its customers, it provides rapid, economical and applicable solutions to technical and organizational problems. As nongovernmental organization, it also receives funding from German federal and state ministries to undertake future-oriented research projects with the aim of finding solutions to common issues concerning the industrial economy and society in general. Within the framework of the European Union's technology programs, the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft is actively involved in numerous industrial consortia for cooperative projects.

By developing technological innovations and novel systems solutions for their customers, the research institutes of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft help to reinforce the competitive strength of the economy in their region, and broadly, they aim to promote the economic development of the industrial society, paying particular attention to social and environmental concerns. Furthermore, the global alignment of industry and research has made international collaboration imperative. Several affiliated research centers and representative offices in Europe, the USA, and Asia provide contact to the most important current and future economic markets.

To its scientific staff, the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft offers a challenging environment that enables them to acquire high-level professional and personal qualifications. This allows them also to assume positions of responsibility within their institute, and later, in the industry.

At present, the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft is composed of 80 research units, including 57 research institutes that all together cover a broad spectrum of research areas. With a staff group of around 13.000 collaborators, predominantly qualified scientists and engineers, the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft works with an annual budget of approximately one billion euros, being approximately 90 % of this budget generated through contract research projects. Roughly, two thirds of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft’s contract research revenue is derived from direct, customer-oriented projects for industries, and governmental or international agencies (such as the German Ministry for Education and Research or the European Commission). The remaining third is contributed by the German federal and state governments and serves to sponsor strategic basic research within the institutes in areas that will foreseen become relevant to industry and society in a mid- and longterm perspective.

The Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft currently owns a total of 1,576 patents and trademarks. During the last ten years, the number of patents has been more than doubled, and in the year 2002, 249 patents were issued. Among these, there are significant patents in the areas of information security and assurance (for example, active watermarks and watermark agents), virtual and augmented reality, and interaction tools (such as real 3D navigation mouse and virtual glove box).

Within the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, the Fraunhofer-Institut für Graphische Datenverarbeitung is a research institute with focus on computer graphics technologies and their applications.

The Fraunhofer-Institut für Graphische Datenverarbeitung (Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics), in short IGD, is a re-search institution of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, and it is member of the INI-GraphicsNet (presented in the following section).

Campus of the Ewha Womans University.

With a taskforce of more than 530 collaborators, among them 190 full-time employees, and an annual budget of approximately 26 million euros, IGD is one of the major institutions of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft and plays a leading role worldwide in the domain of information and communication technology. Since its foundation in 1987, its activities have been focused on the development of product prototypes (hardware and software), on the realization of concepts, models, and solutions using computer graphics and on their adaptation to specific application requirements.
In addition to the direct benefits gained by the project contractors and sponsors, IGD’s contribution to the society is also significantly accomplished through the dissemination of the research find-ings; and, since 1996, thirteen spin-off companies have been created with the goal of transferring the developed innovation technologies to the market.

The core research group of IGD is located in Darmstadt, Germany, with external branches and divisions in Frankfurt on the Main and Rostock, in Providence (USA), and Singapore.

Signing of the Agreement.

INI-GraphicsNet, INI-GraphicsNet Foundation INI-GraphicsNet stands for the International Network of Institutions for Advanced Education, Training and R&D in Computer Graphics Technology, Systems and Applications. This network was formed and progressively enlarged by world leading R&D institutions (some of them founded in 1975), and currently, it brings together the expertise and know-how of more than 850 employees, and an annual budget of more than 41 million euros. It constitutes one of the largest organizations worldwide for visualization technologies, new media, and several other information and communication technologies in addition to their applications.

Due to the institutional and encouraged cooperations, plus the presence in three continents, the INI-GraphicsNet became an international ‘player’, and every involved partner (including project customers) benefits significantly from the merging of knowledge and experience, the awareness of regional issues and market opportunities. By taking part in such a network, IGI, as the viewing point, has the opportunity to learn and cooperate closely with several other R&D institutes, commercial enterprises, and industry forums from Germany, Italy, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, and the USA.

The members of the INI-GraphicsNet also benefit from special services provided by the INI-GraphicsNet Stiftung (INI-GraphicsNET Foundation), which has an “umbrella” role for the network. The Foundation aims to bring about cooperations and synergies between relevant groups within and outside of the institutional network and to help these groups and any network researcher to identify commercial prospects for their research results, and later, on transferring these results to the market, for example, by establishing technology-oriented spin-off companies.

Benefits of an international presence and network of competences.

Ewha Womans University
Ewha Womans University, which began as a missionary school held in a private home in the late 19th century, is now the largest women’s university in the world with an alumni of 140,000 graduate and, currently, 21,000 enrolled students (including, 5,000 graduate students), 700 faculty members, 14 colleges, 1 division, and 14 graduate schools.
In addition to its educational role in the academia sector, the university is also deeply committed to becoming a center of excellence in research and, with the respective achievements, to bringing a further contribution to the society.

Its institutional vision as described below ratifies this goal (quoted text partially extracted from Ewha Womans University Internetsite ):
“Ewha’s commitment to research is evident in the firm drive to maintain the most qualified and productive faculty body. Ewha continues to invest in the maintenance and creation of state-of-the-art research facilities. The university also supports areas in which women have traditionally distinguished themselves: languages, design, and women's studies. Less obvious but as important are fields such as life sciences, information and communications, international cooperation, and regional studies. The faculties are encouraged to combine academic achievements with practical applications, ultimately preparing the school to be more adaptable to the rapidly-changing financial and scientific environment of the university.”
The Division of Digital Media of the Ewha Graduate School is one manifestation of such commitment. It has been established to initiate epoch-making development in the field of information technology and to cultivate IT professionals through practical research via industrial-university cooperations. In close collaboration with IGI, lecturers, researchers, and students from this division have the possibility to gain valuable experience in practice-oriented projects (besides the opportunity to verify and validate research assumptions and findings in real scenarios) and further skills such as in the planning and coordination of international projects and teams.

Supporting partners
IGI has been assigned by its founding partners and by the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft (acting on behalf of Fraunhofer-IGD) to be the R&D Center responsible for the realization of strategic R&D as accorded in a major agreement, in full “International Joint Research Agreement”, between these institutions and the Korean Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) and the Korean Institute of Information Technology Assessment (IITA). This agreement is based on the strategic initiative from the Korean government to foster international co-operations and the establishment of research units from renowned international organizations in Korea with the purpose strengthening domestic IT R&D capabilities, and thus, of bringing Korea to a leading position in the innovation front and global market.

On the 17th of May 2004, a major public event was held at the campus of the Ewha Womans University for the signing of the document legitimating this agreement and for the inauguration of IGI new facilities. In this occasion, it was proposed the change of the name NEMETech to Institute for Graphic Interface, due to the new role, organization and technical orientations.

Project partners
IGI is open for longterm institutional and technical collaboration as well as for cooperations on specific activities (e.g. within a time-limited project). These are sought with competent and reliable partners willing to work according to the contractual agreements.

As remarked before, cooperation enables exchanges, complementarities, and synergy of knowledge, ideas, and experience. Some ideas of mutual benefit are:

• The exchange of new experiences acquired within projects strengthen own institutional and personnel expertise. Later on, a record of positive results is a trigger for new projects with regard to prospective customers and funding organizations;
• According to arrangements established for a specific project or more comprehensive cooperation, the partners may benefit from infrastructure available from their partner (e.g. information and communication technology, laboratories, library);
• Partners may undertake and share exploitation and dis-semination plans. These may involve joint publication of research findings and project results on conferences and journals, organization of workshops, registration of patents, contributions to standardization, and creation of spin-offs (venture companies).

The position and experience of IGD and other INI-GraphicsNet members in European and USA markets help to push forward the innovation effort and to extend the application scope and validity of the project results by bringing in for example requirements, regulations, and test-beds not always found in Korea. The inclusion of these new parameters enhances the attractiveness of the resulting products, improves significantly the chances for customer satisfaction in a global market, and reduces innovation risks.

Prospective partners for technical work are other Korean R&D Centers and universities, other Institutes from the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, and any relevant technology providers. Appropriate cooperation agreements will be established leading to an extended network of excellence.

For the R&D tasks proposed in the “International Joint Research Agreement”, a project partner already set-up for a long-standing cooperation is the Korean Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI). Established in 1976, ETRI is a non-profit government-funded research organization that has been at the forefront of technological excellence in Korea for more than 25 years. As a recognized leader among information and telecommunication research institutes, it has successfully developed information technologies well positioned in the market such as the Digital Mobile Telecommunication System (CDMA).

Areas of work
On the whole, IGI has the great aspiration to become a world leading institution in the fields of graphic interfaces, human-computer interaction, and further associated information and communication technologies. Taking also into consideration the network of partnerships previously described, the collaboration fosters an evolving competence scope and interdisciplinary orientation, in addition to the synergies, which shall secure for our customers always the best and most appropriated solutions.

The main technological competences and research interests are:

• Virtual and augmented reality;
• Graphical information systems (especially geographic information system);
• Information security;
• Mobile computing;
• Human-computer interactions.

And the major motivating application domains are:

• Virtual engineering;
• E-learning and e-training;
• Culture content information;
• Ubiquitous computing.

As for the International Joint Research Agreement, IGI focuses its technological competencies in two specific ICT areas: intelligent manufacturing systems and information security systems. These two areas have been selected due to the evolving technological challenges and the relevance of the respective technologies and knowledge to the Korean and world market both in a short and longterm perspective.

Intelligent manufacturing systems
The major goal for employing digital, automation technologies within a product development process is the improvement of both the conceived product itself and the respective development and production process. At the end, attributes of the final product, such as quality and cost, should fully meet the customer’s requirements and satisfaction. Yet, more and more these requirements tend to consider as well the degree of innovation and differentiation of the product. Similarly, the global dimension of the market gives scope to high competition, which forces manufactures to a continuous shift to higher-value offer of goods and services.

For IGI, intelligent manufacturing systems stand for solutions that promote such technological innovation and increased productivity in manufacturing industries.

Integrated product development process.

Our technological aims and visions
IGI proposes to overcome deficiencies of current, existing engineering solutions related, for example, to usability, interoperability of tools and data, and extensions to support tasks outside engineering offices. Other challenges that have been taken concern the provision of secure, effective integration of any geographic distant and heterogeneous partners involved in a product life cycle process.
The picture on page 35 illustrates the vision of a fully integrated product development process supported by information and communication technologies.
To achieve this scenario, the following characteristics are crucial:

• The customer requirements should be continuously at hand and taken into account along the development process, and validation tests should be selectively, continuously performed by means of virtual prototypes. This approach supports the production of individual, customoriented products and improves product quality.
• Process steps assigned to external agents (e.g. suppliers, development partners) should be coupled as necessary to the main process. A “cross-enterprise engineering” approach speeds up decisions and specifications. However, this can only be accepted with a guarantee of secure and reliable exchange of data across networks, and realized by integrating tools for sharing data and applications.
• A synergetic, consistent, and rapid interchange of data and know-how should exist between development process steps and human agents involved. The increased input information helps to improve the outcome of the individual steps, and the transfer of task realizations into more adequate systems increases productivity.
• • Virtual engineering and digital prototyping imply that people have to deal with and “manipulate” objects and tools, which are not part of their real physical workplace. The essential approach for better usability and productivity is an overall human-cen-tered concern, which implies that any solution should be conceived primarily according to user and task requirements.

Many of these challenges are under investigation in several research groups. However, in most of the cases, their objectives are to improve or create new tools to solve problems at a specific step or among subsequent steps, as mentioned at the beginning of this chapter. None of the current projects and proposals considers a comprehensive vision to support the whole product development process; certain process steps such as recycling, training, or any fieldwork are seldom considered.

Taking into consideration the fully integrated process, we foresee a new generation of tools and intelligent systems, which will provide improved usability and more possibilities to interoperate data and results among any tool relevant to the user. Thus, large manufacturing enterprises will be able to perform a product life cycle in a more efficient and productive way and to interact more easily with agents across regional borders. Small-to-Medium Enterprises (SME’s) will be able to enhance their individual competences (or even to create clusters among them) and reach further markets in a more competitive way.

Information security reference projects
IGI has so far three ongoing cooperation projects. In addition to them, there is already a workplan of several other R&D projects in preparation and to be realized within the International Joint Research Agreement. The choice and specification of these latter were done in tune with the expressed demands of several manufactur-ing companies in Korea. Thus, the prospect of obtaining new project contracts is very promising, and IGI is currently involved in several bits for tenders both in the Korean and European scientific environment.

Evaluation of new technologies in the region of Daejeon City
Project background and goal:
On behalf of public agencies from Daejeon Metropolitan City, IGI has set up a project to evaluate newly backed technologies from small & medium venture companies located in region of Daejeon Metropolitan City. The technologies should be evaluated with regard to their scientific values, innovation assets, and their market prospects. As appropriate, the companies should receive recommendations for a future exploration of market opportunities in Europe.

IGI has appointed the INI- GraphicsNet Fondation to define and realize the evaluation process.

Project implementation
The project started with a workshop in Daejeon City to introduce INI-GraphicsNet Foundation to the invited companies and promote their participation. Important issues such as background experience, the evaluation process and benefits to be expected, and non-disclosure terms were clarified.

The four steps of the evaluation process are:

1. Description of the technology and product: A questionnaire prepared by INI-GraphicsNet Foundation was distributed to the interested companies.
2. Initial review: Several tens of companies filled in and returned the questionnaires; in some cases accompanied by further relevant material. All this information was evaluated by experts from the INI-GraphicsNet and other institutions.
3. On-site evaluation: According to the pre-defined criteria, the fifteen best-rated technologies were selected for a second evaluation round. For this, IGI had organized individual meetings between company staff members and expert evaluators for further clarification and personal discussion. (Fig picture evaluation sessions at two companies) Hitherto, all the onsite evaluations were completed with very positive and promising results.
4. Final report: The detailed results of these evaluations will be individually handed out to the respective companies, and a complete report to the contracting agency. These documents shall report on the overall quality of the technology and include recommendations for further steps towards a successful commercialization. For the companies not selected for the onsite evaluation, the document will clarify the judgment and provide the due recommendations.

Thanks to the successful results so far, a follow-up project is in discussion. On that occasion, the companies may exploit further services of INI-GraphicsNet Foundation on bringing their technologies to the European market.

Evaluation session at a bio-technology company.

EduTeCH – Edutainment Technologies for Cultural Heritage in Asia
Project background and goal:
The Gyeongbokgung palace in Seoul – the main palace of the royal family during the Joseon Dynasty (1392–1910) – is one of the most visited historical places in South Korea. Unfortunately, great part of the palace buildings were destroyed on multiple occasions either by fire or dismantled by hostile invaders, and their assets, carried away from Korea. Currently, visitors can see only some renovated buildings, which are sometimes not even situated at their original location. Gyeongbokgung is also the location of Jiphyeonjeon – the academy building –, where the Korean alphabet “Hangeul”, was created and proclaimed in 1446 under the regency of King Sejong. Such significant cultural treasure and dynamic background are deemed worth of being documented for all future generations and made more widely known.

Newest IT technologies in the fields of mobile computing, virtual reality, visual tracking, and digital storytelling allow us to create highly realistic virtual simulations that can bring this history back to life. Within EduTeCH, the competences from several INI-GraphicsNet member institutions were put together in order to create an “Edutainment” system (education and entertainment interactive application) for pupils and children that teaches the basics of the Hangeul alphabet in a very playful way.

Left: Digital reconstruction of Gyeongbokgung Palace grounds and a real building. Right: Sung Sam Mun as a virtual character who guides the user through theinteractive.

Project results
With special equipment, the user of the system is able to immerse into a virtual scene and experience a reconstruction of the Gyeongbokgung palace (see figures on the left). After a personal encounter with virtual characters (avatars), the visitor gets involved in an educational game. The avatars are connected to the story engine and show realistic behaviors depending on the structure of the narration. The scene is composed of reconstructions of dismantled buildings of the palace site. At several areas of interest, the story gets activated and the user is confronted with tasks, which he/she has to solve in order to get to the next chapter. The story engine ensures that the story develops individually and in accordance with the user’s path around the site. The system is based on a Blender 3D engine; the developed interfaces enable the connection of the virtual environment and the narrative processor.

Sung Sam Mun – the avatar embodying one of the scholars of King Sejong – guides the visitor on his/her exploration of the virtual palace. In the game, Sung Sam Mun asks for the visitor’s help because somebody has stolen the alphabet table and scattered the letters all over the palace! The hiding places have to be found and questions to be answered to retrieve the letters. To answer the questions, the visitor has to explore the palace and to study some historical background information.

Thus, EduTeCH brings together education and entertainment elements in order to create an informative experience. Similar applications could be generated in relation to any cultural asset in any country. It is worth remarking that the Republic of Korea has seven sites that are registered on the “World Heritage” List by the UNESCO.

Currently, a business plan is being elaborated and market analysis carried out by the partners in order to evaluate the impact and commercial opportunities of such applications in the Asian and European markets. The EduTeCH project is carried out by a consortium of INI-GraphicsNet member institutions: IGI, CAMTech in Singapore, ZGDV, Fraunhofer IGD and GIStec in Germany.

SurMobil – Survey on Mobile Interaction Systems
Project background and goal:
In the mass-production computer market, it is not always easy to find an off-the-rack solution tailor-made to some odd requirements as those posed by mobile applications and in affordable prices.

In the miniaturization industry serving mobile applications, the main concern is mostly either “to squeeze” as much as possible functionality in a compact set, or to produce a tiny basic set by subtracting a great amount of functionality and performance (whose extensions are to be externally plugged anyway later on). Furthermore, usability is very poor considered and it seems that validation tests on the field are mostly disregarded by the manufactures. These statements are true both for processing devices and for interaction devices.
Lastly, to find specific devices for particular mobile applications is not an easy task as for traditional indoor, desktop usage because certain task-important attributes such as robustness to endure temperature extremes, water-resistance, or battery-power consumption are usually not clearly advertised.

Within this project, IGI and its partner plan to evaluate the requirements from users as well as from component makers for hardware for mobile systems, and to produce a comprehensive compilation of the existing solutions such as: • portable (handheld, wearable) processing units;

• portable (handheld, head-based) displays;
• input/output devices for more natural, unobtrusive human-machine interaction, including
• biometrics;
• optical tracking systems
• (eye gaze, gesture);
• indoor/outdoor location aware devices;
• video cameras;
• WLANs, Bluetooth chips and adapters, cellular telephony and satellite infrastructures.

In a later step, these solutions should be classified according to their characteristics and suitability to potential application situations.
The parameters for this classification will be based on a compilation of requirements described by existing projects related to mobile computing and augmented reality, and also to applications in the areas of digital engineering, cultural heritage information, edutainment, and location based services.

Project outcomes
The results of this study will be registered in form of a catalogue, to be made available to research groups from the INI-GraphicsNet, which are involved with these technology and application areas.
The missing technologies and suggestions for improvement may even lead to the development of innovative, dedicated devices to best support future systems. Such development would be carried out in cooperation with external manufacture (from Asia and Europe), or even in a joint venture through a spin-off newly formed for this purpose.

Target market and customers
Target market
The target market for IGI innovation technologies is mainly composed of:

• Worldwide manufacturing industries and the respective chain of suppliers and partners. The most promising industrial sectors for potential customers are those with highly complex products, such as vehicles, electronics, or manufacturing systems, and those where there is a great distribution of operational plants and human agents (e.g. car manufacture and shipbuilding);
• Industries from other industry sectors, such as building construction, with similar complex “products” and missing equivalent solutions;
• Local small and medium enterprises without own R&D resources. New technological assets and the improved quality of their products and operational processes will increase competitiveness and, subsequently, their international market share;
• Service enterprises ready to undertake a commercial exploitation of the research findings;
• National and International government and public agencies.

On dealing with highly demanded technologies and booming areas, IGI is acting in a very competitive arena, both in the industrial and research community. Thus, a significant market share can only be achieved with world-class products and a short time-to-market.

The accomplishment of such requisites is very promising in view of the technical qualifications of the project partners and their solid experience on bringing new technology into practice.

Business model and services
Business model
The following activities constitute the business and financial model of IGI:

• Basic funding from governmental institutions such IITA, MIC;
• sService contract for customers from industrial and service sectors;
• Funding of technical developments on behalf of governmental organizations;
• Provision of consultancy services;
• Commercialization of licenses and intellectual property rights (IPRs).

In the setting-up phase, the basic funding was a crucial factor to cover and lessen initial costs regarding: investment in technical infrastructure, establishing and training of a competent staff in technical and managerial issues, and realization of competence-building pilot projects. This basic funding is also very important for the financing of activities, which are not directly paid for on a project basis or by means of reinvestments, such as: development of strategic research, participation in fairs and scientific conferences, technical literature acquisition, and marketing of results. Progressively, IGI shall be financially self-sustainable through project contracts and selling of products and licenses worldwide.

Services
Studies: assessment of the current practices, infrastructures, and needs at customer’s environment, followed by recommendations;
Consulting: Technical support for the choice and introduction of software and automation technology, training; Software Development: Development and prototypical implementation for the verification of concepts, products and processes;

The distinctive characteristics of these services in comparison to other enterprises in the academia and consultancy area are: scientifically founded results to the customers.

• Innovation and application goal;
• Act in accordance with contractual issues (confidentiality, deadlines, etc.);
• The publication of any project-related information is regulated by contractual terms and in any case, has to be agreed upon in advance by the parties involved; and
• Unbound from technology suppliers.

People and Facilities
Personnel
Qualified computer scientists, engineers, and designers are progressively forming the research team of IGI. In addition, for the duration of the Joint Research Agreement, Fraunhofer IGD and other institutions from the INI-GraphicsNet will maintain locally, at IGI, a group of their own scientific personnel. Such local operations will contribute to rapidly establishing IGI in two ways: by the integration of existing know-how, and by the transfer of experience mainly in the field of planning and
co-ordination of international projects.

A highly skilled and motivated team does not only guarantee the development of world-class products but also helps to promote and accelerate technological leaps, which is a key factor in a highly dynamic market.

2 Premises
IGI occupies a whole floor in a building at the Ewha Womans University campus, and there are ample space for offices, laboratories, and demonstration rooms. The proximity to such a great source of researchers, qualified students, and partners, is much worth and fosters many productive contacts.