Dr. Ki-Chan Kim is a Professor of Business Administration at The Catholic University of Korea. He received a PhD from Seoul National University, and has conducted research at the University of Tokyo, and MIT as a visiting scholar. Dr. Kim will join the GWSB team as a visiting professor.
On Tuesday, June 9th, during the ICSB Annual General Meeting at the 60th Annual ICSB World Conference, Dr. Kim officially took over as President of the 2015-16 ICSB Board of Directors. He addressed the delegates of the conference with the below remarks, outlining his plans for facilitating global entrepreneurial goals.
We look forward to welcoming Dr. Kim to the GWSB community!
Dr. Ki-Chan Presidential remarks:
Dear my fellow ICSB members,
I feel lucky to become the President at the 60th diamond anniversary of ICSB which was established in 1955 in this great city of change and innovation, Dubai. I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our previous presidents. I thank President Ascua for his service to our organization, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition. The road to studying and supporting SMEs is lonesome. I offer the best respect to our predecessors who have pursued this road with fortitude. I promise I will keep their tradition and dedication to SME development and thus economic development for the prosperous world.
In Asia, 60th anniversary has a very special meaning. It means a new start for a person or an organization. In this sense, I am thinking of the tasks ICSB needs to carry out in the near future, looking back what we have done so far.
Our social system, in particular the capitalism, is in the midst of crisis due to huge inequities in income and thus wealth throughout the world. ‘The Occupy Wall Street movement’ is an example of bring the conflict between the rich and the poor to the surface. Considering this situation, I would like to focus on the following four tasks during my term, in addition to keeping our wonderful tradition.
Firstly, I like to re-establish entrepreneurship for a heartwarming society. Entrepreneurship has been known to be the best driver and enabler to change and innovate a society. It has been always important. However, we need to redefine entrepreneurship at this juncture where we see tremendous inequalities and bipolarization in our society. In my humble opinion, entrepreneurship 1.0 was for individual problem solving, entrepreneurship 2.0 was for companies and organizations, but now entrepreneurship 3.0 is for societal problem solving.
In the year of ICSB 60, I would like to make entrepreneurship the fundamental source of a heartwarming society. For this, I propose to form a Definition Committee of Entrepreneurship 3.0 where experts from UN, OECD, World Bank, Inter-America Bank, Asian Development Bank, and other organizations gather together to discuss the issue.
The key task of the committee is to redefine the entrepreneurship as entrepreneurship for humanity, that is, Humane Entrepreneurship. The core value proposition of humane entrepreneurship is OBF, in other words, ‘of the people, by the people, for the people.’ Once we have a new definition of entrepreneurship, I will speak with ICSB leadership of each country to get endorsement for a year and announce it at the 61st ICSB New York Conference which will be held at ,hopefully, UN Headquarter. Your support and help will be critical to make it happen.
Secondly, I would like to make ICSB as the facilitator for collaboration and the platform for creating mega-synergy. I like to make ICSB with 60 year history be the bridge to bring together SMEs, policy makers, and scholars to generate big synergy through their collaboration. Not to mention the collaboration among scholars from Asia, Europe, North/South America, and Africa to generate the synergy in their research performance. I will make ICSB the platform at which SME experts are eager to come to join.
I was born in Korea in 1958. At the time, Korea along with Ghana and Malaysia was one of the poorest countries. Now Korea become one of the developed countries of which GDP per capita reaches 30,000 dollars. Entrepreneurship has been the basis for this achievement of Korean economy. Both entrepreneurship and the dedicated support of Korean government made the miracle from the economy totally ruined by Korean war. You may know the name of the great companies like Samsung, LG, and Hyundai which started their business at the time. I like to transfer the core spirit of Korean entrepreneurs to developing countries, in particular, ASEAN where ICSB activities are very weak at the current moment. I like to promote ICSB presence in the countries of Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Vietnam, Thai, and Cambodia and build a strong collaborative relationship with them. ASEAN is known to be the most active in their economic activities and Asia is the most promising region in terms of its potential for future growth. I believe that the more number of ICSB members need to visit Asian countries to build collaborative relationship which will make our world warmer. This collaboration will provide ICSB with huge growth opportunity. Therefore, I like to form ‘Special Committee for ICSB, ASEAN’ to promote the plan.
So far, researchers have put huge efforts on studying SMEs in the U.S. and Europe. We need to expand our scope of study to include SMEs in the developing countries in Asia, South America, and Africa. So that we need to deliver and transfer the experiences, trial and errors of developed countries to these developing countries. Especially, we need to develop theories and case studies on the economic growth and innovation in Asian countries. Through this activity, I like to help developing countries craft effective SME policies and business models for SME success.
Thirdly, I would like to run ICSB Global Entrepreneurship Academy. With this academy, I like to build a new education program for entrepreneurship 3.0 in each member country. There is a saying that ‘if entrepreneurs do not cross border, the army does.’ Entrepreneurship is the key driver to build Global Value Chain(GVC) which creates mega-synergy across countries to make every partners win at the same time. The more entrepreneurs cross borders, the more economies grow together. I wish, through this collaboration, the tensions and conflicts among nations will be eased and dissolved.
Fourthly, with more discussions, I would like to establish ICSB Humane Entrepreneurship Award which will be given to the best entrepreneurs dedicating to humane entrepreneurship and globalization. I like to form the award committee with best people within ICSB and invited experts so that we can make the award fair and privileged. The award will hopefully be given at the 61st ICSB New York/New Jersey Conference next year. I strongly insist that all of you join to recommend the best humane entrepreneur of your country to the committee.
I will make action plans for each task to inform you of the progress from time to time. Please let me know at anytime when you have any suggestion about the tasks. I need your backup and support to make it success.
Next year, with all achievements, we will have the 61st ICSB World Conference at UN Headquarter and Wall Street. The topic of the conference will be Humane Entrepreneurship with more discussions at Board meeting,
Dear my fellow ICSB Members,
Let’s go together shoulder-to-shoulder for the new era of ICSB and Entrepreneurship.
Thank you very much.
ICSB President (2015-16), Ki-Chan Kim