Global conference in Seoul explores Big Data

The IEEE International Conference on Data Engineering (ICDE) kicked off its five-day run on Monday at COEX in Seoul.

The international conference, which covers Big Data and advanced data-intensive applications, aims to shine a light over the direction data management and research is headed.

The event extended invitations to tech companies, renowned data scientists and scholars to discuss the research results on data mining and analysis.

This is the first time Seoul has hosted such a conference.

Among the key speakers are Hector Garcia-Molina, a professor in the departments of computer science and electrical engineering at Stanford University.

He is best known as the adviser to Google co-founder Sergey Brin.

In the session titled “Big Data: Old Wine in New Bottle?” set for today, Garcia-Molina will delve into the distinctive technological foundations of Big Data and obstacles that might compromise its promise.

Garcia-Molina also contributed to making policy decisions on ICT when he served on the U.S. President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee from 1997 to 2001.

In the corporate field, he is a member of the Oracle Corporation’s Board of Directors.

Other panelists at the session include David Lomet of Microsoft, Umeshwar Dayal, a senior fellow at Hitachi and Professor Cha Sang-kyun of Seoul National University (SNU).

Surajit Chaudhuri, a distinguished scientist at Microsoft Research, is also scheduled to deliver an address Wednesday on the topic, “Information at Your Fingertips: Only a Dream for Enterprises?”

On April 17, the last day of the conference, Dr. Hwang Hee of Seoul National University Bundang Hospital will cover data management in the health care sector.

SK Telecom, the biggest telecommunications provider and the forum’s sponsor, will demonstrate its data warehouse system, known as TAJO. The platform is designed to process a vast amount of data and manage queries faster than conventional platforms.

“We are pleased to present TAJO as a good example of Big Data management at the conference,” said Choi Jin-seong, the director at SK Telecom.

“SK Telecom will continue to foster partnerships with different groups and attract talent to increase competition in data management,” Choi added.

Established in 1984, ICDE delves into the dissemination data management research results among experts, users, practitioners, and developers.

Previous host cities include Chicago; Arlington, Virginia; and Hannover, Germany.

BY PARK EUN-JEE [park.eunjee@joongang.co.kr]