Government to Pair SMEs and Mid-sized Companies with International Standards Experts

'Standardization Support Matchup Project' Launch Ceremony on the 23rd

Lee Seung-woo, Director of the National Institute of Technology and Standards, Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. (Photo by Yonhap News)

[Asia Economy Reporter Moon Chaeseok] The government is launching the 'Standardization Support Matchup Project,' which pairs small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and mid-sized companies with international standard experts. This service helps register excellent technologies as international standards.

The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy's National Institute of Technology and Standards (NITS) announced that on the 23rd at 2 p.m., it will hold a project launch ceremony at The K-Hotel in Seoul, attended by 26 experts, 23 companies, and about 50 stakeholders including the Association of Advanced Technology Centers (ATC).

The project is part of the '4th Industrial Revolution Era International Standardization Preemption Strategy' established in June last year. It was prepared to provide customized support for international standardization of SMEs and mid-sized companies.

International standard experts will be assigned to technology companies in 10 innovative growth fields of the 4th Industrial Revolution, including autonomous and electric vehicles, energy (such as hydrogen), intelligent robots, smart manufacturing, bio-health, drones and marine structures, smart cities and homes, non-memory semiconductors, displays, and smart farms.

The experts will fully support all processes from proposing to establishing international standards for the technologies.

NITS selected 26 experts with experience in international standardization activities through an open recruitment and appointed them as international standard consultants.

The consultants are individuals with over 10 years of technical expertise in 4th industrial fields such as future vehicles, bio, and intelligent robots.

They are retired or near-retirement experts with experience as chairs, secretaries, or conveners in international organizations such as the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC).

The consultants signed matching agreements with 23 companies on the day and began supporting standardization.

The 23 companies were selected based on their possession of excellent technologies registered in the National Technology Bank (NTB) or designated as ATCs, considering the possibility and urgency of international standardization.

Representative projects that consultants will promote with companies for international standards include evaluation technology for collaborative robot collision prevention functions, evaluation of binder jetting additive manufacturing (3D printing), and autonomous agricultural machinery history data.

NITS plans to support participation fees for international standardization meetings for employees of selected companies and consultants, and if additional international standardization research and development (R&D) is required, it will seek ways to support through the Standard Technology Capability Enhancement Project.

On the day, NITS signed a memorandum of understanding for cooperation on the standardization support matchup project with related organizations such as the Korea Institute for Advancement of Technology, which operates the NTB, the ATC Association, and the Korean Standards Association.

Lee Seung-woo, head of NITS, said, "Through the consultants' rich standardization experience and global human networks, innovative technologies of domestic SMEs and mid-sized companies will be established as international standards. Going forward, we will select about 20 companies annually for the matchup project and support over 100 domestic SMEs and mid-sized companies to appear on the international standardization stage by 2023, when the '4th Industrial Revolution Era International Standardization Preemption Strategy' ends."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.