Samia Melhem
Lead Digital Development Specialist, World Bank
Samia Melhem is the Global Lead for the Digital Development Community of Practice at the World Bank. Her operational responsibilities include investment operations in digital platforms & services as well as thought leadership on digital development. She has recently contributed to the Digital Development Partnership (DDP) setup, and is now leading the DDP’s Digital government analytical work. She has managed digital government transformational projects in Rwanda, Egypt, Philippines, Burkina Faso, Kenya, Lebanon, Morocco, Guinea, Cote d’Ivoire - leveraging disruptive technologies to improve delivery of public services. She is currently focusing on digital identification projects for regional integration and implementation of inclusive digital economy enablers. She has authored numerous analytical papers and research on disruptive technologies. She holds degrees in Electrical Engineering (BS), Computer Sciences (MS), and Finance (MBA).
Heonsoo Rhee
President of Korea Innovation Center Silicon Valley
National IT Industry Promotion Agency
As an accomplished, confident, insightful global business executive, Mr. Rhee has been working in the ICT industry for the last 34 years in both global business and R&D Engineering areas. With substantial proven achievement and solid experiences in the global market with various positions like a Senior Executive in business organization and Scientific Staff & Engineer in R&D in Global Companies such as IBM, Cisco in the US, Bell Northern Research in Canada and Telecommunication Division in Samsung Electronics as well as Venture companies located in San Jose, USA, currently, he is leading Korea Innovation Center, Silicon Valley operated by Ministry of Science & ICT, Korea Government to make a visibly great business impact onto Korean Promising Science and Technology, ICT-based SMBs by helping them penetrate the global market successfully with a Global business support platform as well as a newly developed Korean Global Venture Ecosystem in Silicon Valley by Korea Innovation Center. He has majored in Physics for his Bachelor Degree and Computer Engineering for his Master Degree in Yonsei University, Seoul Korea. Also he has completed AICPA Program in Sogang Graduate School.
Jongkap Kim
Chief Executive Director
Born2Global Centre
For 20 years, Kim has supported Korean startups in Silicon Valley. Prior to his tenure at the Born2Global Centre (B2G), he was the founding member and CEO of ETRI Silicon Valley, a Korean government research institution that capitalized on the Silicon Valley atmosphere, bridging academia and the industry to ultimately turn ideas into realities. Prior to ETRI, he was CEO of iPark Silicon Valley, another government agency and business incubator. Kim was responsible for developing, implementing, and managing business strategies for iPark Silicon Valley’s portfolio companies and for advising on Korean government policy and budget development for the high-tech industry. In addition, he has focused on creating investments, partnerships, and strategic alliances with U.S. channel partners. Beyond establishing and running government operations in the American market, Kim is an entrepreneur with multiple startups in the heart of Silicon Valley, Santa Clara. His diverse expertise includes technology startups and global business, and he has supported more than 2,000 startups. He completed a PhD course at Vanderbilt University in finance and received an MS from Seoul National University in environmental planning and design.
Victory Ji
Manager, Great Safety Information Laboratory (GSIL)
Victoria Ji is International Business Manager at GSIL. Before joining GSIL, Ms. Ji was working at KOTRA LA IP DESK where she was responsible for IP related matters. Before joining KOTRA, Ms. Ji was the International Business Director of MACS Patent & Law &Trademark Office. Ms. Ji graduated from Yonsei University in South Korea in 2008, majoring in law. She earned her Master’s degree in law from the University of Illinois College of Law in 2018 and concentrated on Intellectual Property Law.
Joshua Kim Schimpf
Manager, Hylium Industries
Joshua Kim Schimpf is currently working in Korea as a Manager of Cryogenic Design and Analysis for Hylium Industries, Inc. His related work and experiences are in thermal hydraulics and cryogenic engineering. Hylium works on developing Liquid Hydrogen technologies for future fuel and transportation and is a leading progressive mobility solution to offer point-to-any-point transportation that is safe, simple, zero-emissions, affordable, and comfortable. Ultimately, transforming transportation through hydrogen-powered mobility.
Younghoon Son
North America and Middle East and North Africa Sales Representative, LUXROBO
Younghoon Son is the LUXROBO Sales Representative for North America, Africa & Middle East. Prior to this, he was a Territory Sales Manager for Law Firms & Key Government Agencies and Channel Sales Manager for Online & Print Business Partners at Thomson Reuters. He also worked with Western Digital as an Account Sales Manager for Samsung Electronics & Humax, and as an Analytics Software Lead Development Representative at IBM Korea.
Yeon Ho Kim
General Manager, Visual Camp
YK Kim is a Silicon Valley native who started his first startup at 18. After experiences with Korean early-stage startups and accelerators, he is now the General Manager at VisualCamp. VisualCamp is changing how we interact with our devices by utilizing eye tracking and gaze analysis.
Nohkyum Kyeong
CEO, Animal Industry Data Korea (AIDK)
Prior to AIDK, Nohkyum Kyeong has been a startup CEO for 4 years at COOLIO, a big data analysis-based contents recommendation platform. Prior to that, he was a Data analyst for 8 years (bioinformatics/social/finance), a Data analysis and search engine development researcher at ETRI and an Investment and algorithm development researcher at Allianz. He is a Bioinformatics (animal gene analysis) Ph.D. student at Seoul National University, Rep. of Korea and has an MS in Business Engineering (big data analysis) from KAIST, Rep. of Korea.
