Business Innovation and Public Management in the Era of Industry 4.0

In early November the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom hosted multiple events in the fields of digitization and industry 4.0 as one of the most important focal areas of FNF activities these days. Especially important was the International Conference on "Business Innovation and Public Management in the Era of the 4th Industrial Revolution".

The seminar aims to search for most effective strategies for business innovation and public management by sharing business experiences and academic research both from home and abroad. To offer both academic and practical discussions the seminar is co-organized by FNF Korea, the Center for Local Autonomy at Hanyang University, the Korea Industry Complex Corporation and the Korea Association for Public Management.

The keynote speech was delivered by Karl-Heinz Paqué, Vice-Chairman of FNF's Executive Board. The session on business innovation offered presentations on German and Japan cases, by Wolfgang Dorst from Bitkom, Berlin, Dieter Schletterer from Siemens Korea and Toshimitsu Kawano from Beckhoff Automation, Tokiyo. All of them emphasized, Industry 4.0 is, rather than just a product like a smartphone, an idea revolutionizing all sectors of our industry.

Apart from the seminar, Mr. Dorst who is the Head of Industrial Internet of Bitkom, gave two special lectures on the industry 4.0. One was hosted in cooperation with the Institute for Democracy at the Korea National Assembly, the second one with the Korea Local Information Research & Development Institute (KLID). Both functions were attended by many participants who were strongly engaged and asking a great variety of questions.