(Interview)"Biomimicry is the Future for Next Generation"

By Park Sae-jin Posted : September 24, 2009, 04:07 Updated : September 24, 2009, 04:07

   
 
Lee O Young, the former minister of Culture
The recession is profoundly disrupting the world even including the tarnished big three automakers in the U.S. which used to have the reputation that their fortresses were unbeatable and impermeable. Meanwhile, South Korea is often referred as one of the first countries that would pull out of the global recession and promising nominees that could step up their ranks from G10 to G4. But, some fear that, because of its dependence on exports, the country will not see a sustained recovery until demand rebounds in America and Europe.

Asia Business met with Lee O Young, the former minister of Culture, to hear his knowledge where the Korean economy should head for amid the recession. The following is the excerpt from the conversation with him. 

Asia Business: What do you think about some comments that Korean culture is not well-suited to create creative intelligence?

Lee: I particularly think that Koreans are too emerged in the Confucianism to think outside of box and people are literally seeing things and interpreting them, only based on what Confucius says in his books. In other words, people put things into the frame and think this is what and how should be done, which means that they absolutely exclude different opinions from their own point of views.

In the west, whereas, people are more likely to be exposed to the culture where they share knowledge and reach a consensus through the process of discussion and persuasion. Creative imagination starts with breaking the existing rules. The culture excluding and not accepting the different ideas only petrify the way people think and act. Moreover, the military regime during the past three decades made more rigid atmosphere in Korean peninsula, stopping Koreans from having opportunities to bring the creativity into the mind.  

What would people in Korea do in a similar situation? Probably, the followers of new president would start a witch-hunting to combat the previous persecutors. The society with a lack of originality and creativity blocks the way people see, think, and act. We should create the culture where anger and wrath in the past is being transformed to the engine for positive and creative thinking. We should build the society with attitude of “Yes, We can” leaving the culture with conflict and connection to the powerful behind and changing the culture from exclusion to inclusion.  

Asia Business:
Please clarify what should be done to innovate the education system and to bring up the creativity?

Lee: We should ask ourselves whether the public education system is fully ready to select and accept students with highly intelligent talent and gift. For instance, Albert Einstein – father of modern physics- failed to enter some prestigious school for not getting good enough point in  math, but he was a centennial genius with breakthrough ideas by thinking and seeing things within the context of four-dimension.  The professors who decided not to accept him did not see his outstanding talents because they were only thinking in three-dimensional point of view. Therefore, we should cultivate a new system that can embrace the gifted and talented, rather than just introducing the admission officer system.

Asia Business: What kind of industry do you think would rise as a new engine for next generation?

Lee: I want to introduce you a new discipline of biomimicry as one of the brand new and promising fields in the future.

Biomimicry (from bios, meaning life, and mimesis, meaning to imitate) is a new discipline that studies nature's best ideas and then imitates these designs and processes to solve human problems. Before human beings started industrial revolution, nothing was new on the surface of earth; the earth was a literally alive organism with its recycling system. However, ever since the mankind began throwing out imperishable products such as plastics and inventing automobiles polluting the air, the earth’s self-recovering ability showed strikingly diminished. We should look for a solution in order to bring the nature’s ability back and elevate the quality of human beings and biomimicry, I believe, would be the answer to this problem.

Studying a leaf to invent a better solar cell is an example. I think of it as "innovation inspired by nature."

The core idea is that nature, imaginative by necessity, has already solved many of the problems we are grappling with. Animals, plants, and microbes are the consummate engineers. They have found what works, what is appropriate, and most important, what lasts here on Earth. This is the real news of biomimicry: After 3.8 billion years of research and development, failures are fossils, and what surrounds us is the secret to survival.

Like the viceroy butterfly imitating the monarch, we humans are imitating the best adapted organisms in our habitat. We are learning, for instance, how to harness energy like a leaf, grow food like a prairie, build ceramics like an abalone, self-medicate like a chimp, create color like a peacock, compute like a cell, and run a business like a hickory forest.

The conscious emulation of life's genius is a survival strategy for the human race, a path to a sustainable future. The more our world functions like the natural world, the more likely we are to endure on this home that is ours, but not ours alone.
Studies like Biomimicry imitating the creative art of god would be ones you should take a look at for the future. 

Asia Business: Korean government is working on implementing the policies related to green growth with strong will to lead the eco-friendly economies in the world. What would be the best way for the public to appreciate its efforts?

Lee: In Europe, there is a parking lot using a movement from cars passing on the speed bump at the entrance to lighten the area. In a sense, this kind of energy efficient technologies can be one way to tap into the green growth in life and make economic benefit. A variety of events related to green growth would enable the public to acknowledge the necessity of new and environment-friendly life. Some official once mentioned “Bicycle Fashion Show” to attract people’s attention. I believe this kind of suggestions with creative ideas can brighten the future of Korea and its economy. 

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