I have now been in this country for three and a half days, and I continue to marvel at the absurd size of Seoul. Given that we had to travel over an hour from the center of Seoul to get to Samsung Biologics, I expected for the building to gradually become smaller, yet the high-rises an hour outside of the city are still absolutely massive. I am keenly aware that I sound like a broken record, but the scale of Seoul will never cease to amaze me.

Samsung Biologics was an interesting place to be, but there seemed to be a lack of focus on any sort of topics related to smart systems. On the one hand, I don’t expect the VP of this massive company to focus exclusively on smart systems just because it happens to be central to our program, but on the other, I do wish that they were at least touched upon. AI was briefly mentioned, but on the whole, the visit seemed tangential to our central field of study. Similarly, the Global Startup Center in Seoul itself seemed lack any particular smart systems, though some of the startups in their building were creating products and services that used various sorts of smart systems.

I suppose this is part of the challenge with understanding and analyzing smart systems: they are a niche. Samsung Biologics might use smart systems, but they are not the central manufacturing goal. They can help optimize processes, and they might be invaluable assets to a company, but they are often not the end goal of a manufacturer. I would absolutely love to see a manufacturer of smart systems. I would especially love to see how smart systems are marketed. The breakdown of target markets would probably be interesting given the broad range of things that can be accomplished by adaptive technology. I imagine tomorrow at NAVER should give me a bit more insight into where smart systems are being used in business, but I am still worried that without seeing the root of where smart systems come from, I am missing out on truly understanding smart systems as a business rather than as a set of tools.

As for the Seoul City Hall, there is not much to say beyond telling you how incredible it was. The whole thing was massive, unique, like nothing we have in the states. On the one hand, the fiscal conservative in me cringes at the amount of money that was likely spent on a government vanity project. On the other hand, it is a really cool government vanity project. Further, given its relation to the old city hall, which was built during Japanese Imperialism, I can understand the intent to completely eclipse the former symbol of Japanese impression that sat in its place for so long. Korea continues to amaze, confuse, and challenge me. Here’s to hoping for another good day tomorrow.