SK Telecom’s CEO suggests ASEAN-ROK collaboration for tech-driven innovation in media and entertainment

SK Telecom’s Chief Executive Officer Park Jung-ho today took part in the ASEAN-Republic of Korea (ROK) Culture Innovation Summit held at BEXCO 2nd Exhibition Hall in Busan as a special event in celebration of the 2019 ASEAN-ROK Commemorative Summit.

At the international summit-level event, participants shared best practices and visions with ASEAN countries on the cultural content as a driving force for future growth in the Fourth Industrial Revolution era: creation of cultural content, spread of cultural content using creative techniques and information technology (IT) and arts education for future generations.

The event brought together distinguished guests of ASEAN-ROK as well as senior executives of entertainment, production, broadcasting, OTT and ICT Companies.

SK Telecom’s CEO Park Jung-ho joined the event as one of the five speakers, including Bang Si-hyuk, CEO of Big Hit Entertainment, Reed Hastings, co-founder and CEO of Netflix, Pierre Coffin, a film director of “Minions, and Brian Chow, CEO of iME Group.

SK Telecom has been expanding the media ecosystem through active development and launch of diverse media technologies and services. It has also launched Wavve, Korea’s largest OTT platform, in partnership with three Korean terrestrial broadcasters in September 2019.

As the CEO of the company that successfully launched the world’s first 5G network, Park explained how 5G has been transforming people’s daily lives and the culture as a whole. He said that the biggest change brought by 5G is being witnessed in the media content and game markets.

CEO Park introduced how SK Telecom is enhancing viewer experience through ground-breaking technologies such as Multi-View, a technology that provides multiple views which are taken by multiple cameras from different positions and angles. For instance, users can follow the moves of their favorite member of an idol group while watching a video content.

Park also said that new and innovative services can be created through the convergence of media and AI, citing an example where viewers of a soap opera can purchase items that appear on the show via NUGU, SK Telecom’s voice-recognition AI speaker, while watching.

He stressed that 5G-driven innovations such as the rise of 5G-powered AR and VR games and paradigm shift in gaming environment from fixed to mobile will change the rules in the gaming market and industry.

CEO Park added that eSports-related media contents are rapidly gaining popularity as seen from the high viewer ratings of LoL World Championship, and said that they will become one of the most important content of OTT providers. He also noted that SK Telecom’s mobile app market One Store is being evolved into a platform that supports a mutually beneficial game ecosystem.

CEO Park emphasized that this tech-driven entertainment can be spread across the ASEAN countries to bring about meaningful cultural and economic growth.

He said that by building on Korea’s strong media content industry, which turned the nation into the third largest exporter in the world following the US and UK, the whole Asia can become a global media content powerhouse based on its rich cultural assets and history. He urged that Korea and the ASEAN countries join forces to create an Asian Movement.

CEO Park concluded its speech by suggesting T.E.A.M (Tech-driven Entertainment for Asian Movement) Project, where all Asian countries work as one team to create globally competitive media and entertainment content by combining cutting-edge ICT and the Asian culture. To this end, he suggested the establishment of Asia Contents Studio that supports the production of powerful content through capital investment, technology exchange and nurturing of talented producers, while building a collaborative media platform in Asia by expanding Wavve into an Asian OTT platform.