This week, OSA DC’s management team attended the Korea Future Forum (KFF) 2018 held in Jongno-gu, Seoul, Korea. Participants spoke about the ‘smart city’ that will bring changes, challenges and solutions for society, and considered trends that will dominate in the future.

KFF guest speakers used their knowledge and insights to give prospects about the present and future global challenges the world is facing. They presented frameworks for thinking and collaboration that can lead humanity into co-existence and co-prosperity.

A ‘Smart Society’ is based on new technologies that are part of the Internet of Things (IoT) and smart home systems, but its ultimate purpose is to create an ecosystem that makes human life more pleasant and efficient.

Among such speakers as Mike Costache (CEO, d10e & KrowdMentor), David Ham (CEO of Scanetchain), David Hanson (Hanson Robotics Founder) and others, OSA DC representative gave a presentation and shared his vision on a ‘Smart Society’ driven by smart consumers and inhabitants, much powered by AI and various technologies that will optimize and personalize their lives like never before.

In their interview OSA DC commented, “It is extremely stressful for consumers to choose between too many products. For future consumption, more personalized services should be provided using AI. If you don’t eat sugar, you need to look for dozens of sugar-free juice products, but checking every single product is complicated and time-consuming. By using an AI process, we can secure transparency with blockchain. Consumers can buy groceries by receiving tokens as an incentive instead of providing their own preference information to the platform. This technology will bring about a big change.”

Hosted by News1, the Korea Future Forum invited Sophia, a social humanoid robot developed by Hong Kong-based Hanson Robotics, to give a presentation and answer random questions of the large audience.

As she chats with people, Sophia emulates more than 60 facial expressions, such as sadness, curiosity, and happiness, and other social cues, thanks to a lifelike face made of a delightfully-named material called frubber (“flesh rubber”).

Sophia, a social humanoid robot

The software has been programmed to give pre-written responses to specific questions or phrases, like a chatbot. These responses are used to create the illusion that the robot understands conversation, including stock answers to questions like “Is the door open or shut?” The information is shared in a cloud network, allowing input and responses to be analyzed with blockchain technology.

In January 2018, Sophia was upgraded with functional legs and the ability to walk.

It was very exciting to share knowledge and insights about the present and future global challenges the world is facing, and to actively present frameworks for thinking and cooperation that can lead humanity into co-existence and co-prosperity.