Wesley's Tool-Box

During this year's Seollal (Korean Lunar New Year) holidays my family traveled around the country. We visited Daegu on Sunday, February 3, as I read that its National Museum had some interesting activities for the kids in celebration of the year of the Golden Pig.

One such activity was actually colouring wooden decorations in the shape of a pig. While my daughters were busy painting them, a camera crew from KBS (Korean Broadcasting System, a national public broadcaster) entered the room and started recording the area. Then they asked me if they could film us taking part in the activity and subsequently do a brief interview. I told them that it was fine.

The whole thing seemed to be for a regional news segment, so I checked to see if it aired that night. Sure enough, that was the case and my family appeared on the News 9, as you can see above. You can click on the captured frame or [here] to see the entire segment - relevant part starts around 1:30.

As the one responsible for the foreign relations and overseas training at the KPX Training Academy (formerly KPX Education Center), I had been cooperating with the Korea Green Growth Trust Fund (KGGTF), a part of World Bank Group, in running their Korea Green Growth Knowledge Exchange (KGGKE) since early 2017. The program provided by KPX within KGGKE introduces the how the electric power market and the system (power grid) is operated, how the short and long term planning is done, and what efforts have been taking place in regards to the renewable energy. Most of the participants have reacted positively to the our program.

In extending this cooperation, I was invited to the Korea Green Innovation Days (KGID) 2018 event held between May 17 and 18 in Seoul, hosted by the World Bank Group and KGGTF. There, I was given the opportunity to introduce the overseas training programs offered by the KPX Training Academy to the participants of the event at one of the working sessions. Several countries have shown interest in starting discussions for new programs.

Recognizing all these efforts, my company and I were awarded the KGGTF Partner Award (received by the head of the Training Academy, Mr. Bae) and the KGGTF Green Connector Award, respectively, at the end of the event. I thank everyone at my company that helped putting together and running the programs successfully. Several Korean newspapers have reported of this occasion.

- Electric Times
- E2News
- Today Energy
- Business Korea

Power supply/demand situation is getting a bit tight in Korea this year - there's this unusually hot weather coming up, and several large nuclear plants got shut down due to faulty parts being put into due to corruption.

As a result, power grid situation room is up and running early, and I'm taking part in the operation. This means I'll be showing up in the news broadcasts a few times throughout this summer. Yesterday saw some significant coverage from the media, and here are the results.

TV:
KBS News 9, May 30, 2013 (#1)
KBS News 9, May 30, 2013 (#2)
SBS 8 News, May 30, 2013
YTN News, 4PM, May 30, 2013

Photos: