Why Korea's innovators miss the payoff

Moon Hong-kyu

The author is a principal researcher at the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute. 

The audience in the lecture hall was quiet, as if cold water had been poured over them. If there had been a winding clock in the room, its ticking might have been audible. As I explained why the U.S. Air Force produced maps of Mars 64 years ago and described the connection between asteroid probes and guided missiles, I received nothing. No reactions. Not even a smile.

Even renowned speakers struggle with certain audiences. Some are dragged into the room against their will. They doze off or spend their time silently assigning scores to the lecturer in their head. I had grown confident that I had overcome that hurdle. I was mistaken. That day, something felt out of sync.

Then a change became noticeable.

It came when I mentioned Company S, Company N and Company R, listed companies on the Kosdaq market that cooperate with a project that I belong to, along with several promising private businesses. These firms are involved in projects ranging from scientific instruments for NASA lunar landers to the Artemis II CubeSat mission and joint Korea-NASA satellite and telescope development efforts.

I usually turn off the lights when a lecture begins because my presentations rely heavily on images. Once my eye adjust to the darkness, I can see the audience more clearly. This time, they were busy. They were taking notes, conducting searches and seemingly running AI agents. The audience consisted of more than 100 members of a stock-investment study group. They did not even have time to laugh.

When the lecture ended, questions poured in. Among the attendees were venture capital investors, the head of a law firm, students, homemakers and retirees. On my way home, I received copies of participants' notes, though calling them notes hardly seemed appropriate. They amounted to the length of a short book.

The volume alone was impressive, but the level of analysis was even more striking. A two-hour lecture had been transformed almost instantly into an investment guide.

Some countries have systems in which capital allocation functions like interlocking gears. In the United States, researchers are broadly permitted to establish companies and retain ownership stakes. Germany and France have public systems that channel capital gains back into research ecosystems.

There is an old expression about "making clothes for others." It refers to spending all night sewing garments, only to hand them over to someone else without ever wearing them yourself.

Korean researchers also stay up through the night making clothes. Why, then, do so many end up with nothing in their hands?

Because the gear that should connect achievement with reward is missing altogether. Without that mechanism, innovation may be created, but the benefits flow elsewhere, leaving those who produced the value standing apart from the wealth generated by their own work.