LG Hosts ‘Software Developer Conference 2023’ to Boost Internal Software Capabilities
2023.09.14SEOUL, Sep. 14, 2023 — LG Electronics (LG) today commenced its ‘LG Software Developer Conference (SDC) 2023’ at LG Sciencepark in Seoul, South Korea. The two-day event is being held to facilitate communication and the exchange of technological expertise among the company’s professional software developers.
Hosted by the LG Software Council, a body composed of LG affiliates and is chaired by LG Electronics, the conference centers on the theme of ‘The Possibilities of Convergence.’ The 33 presentations scheduled over today and tomorrow will cover six different areas of the software sector landscape: AI/big data, mobility/automotive, platform/architecture, software technology/development culture, cloud and emerging technology.
More than 1,000 software engineers from LG Electronics and LG affiliates, and from global software companies such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft, are participating in the conference, joining together in Seoul to share their diverse technology and development know-how.
SDC 2023 kicked off this morning with keynote speeches from Bae Kyung-hoon, director of the LG AI Research Institute, and James Gosling, a distinguished engineer at AWS who is best known as the founder and lead designer of the Java programming language. Mr. Bae introduced LG’s ultra-large multimodal AI solution – EXAONE 2.0 – and outlined how it will be utilized within the LG Group, while Mr. Gosling shared his extensive career in software development.
Following the keynotes, the conference’s comprehensive program of presentations began. Over the course of the SDC, attendees will hear from software developers working in a variety of fields, including home appliances, TVs, electric vehicles and commercial displays, with many speakers discussing specific implementations of the latest technologies, such as AI, software platforms and voice recognition.
Presenting in the platform/architecture category, researchers from LG’s Home Appliance & Air Solution Company and CTO division will introduce ThinQ UP 2.0, which signals a new direction in home appliance software with its seamless combination of appliances and services. In the field of mobility/automotive, researchers from the CTO division will present a roadmap for the implementation of software-defined vehicle technologies, and will cover critical innovations in AI/big data, such as large language model-based autonomous agents and deep learning-based image quality processing.
LG recently announced its future vision to transform into a ‘smart life solution company,’ and is speeding up efforts to strengthen its software capabilities across the whole organization. The company feels that software is crucial in connecting the various spaces in people’s lives and to creating an expanded and more connected customer experience. To this end, LG is collaborating with major universities in Korea and around the globe to identify and secure new talent in software development, and is operating an in-house software reskilling program to accelerate the training of its new recruits. The company is also running its own training and competency certification programs to foster the next wave of LG software experts.
LG has been hosting software development conferences since 2016 to allow its business units to share their technological expertise and to fortify the wider company’s software capabilities. Beginning last year, these events were expanded to include LG affiliates.
SDC 2023 is being held as part of ‘LG SPARK,’ a culture, innovation and arts festival that aims to ignite the spark of innovation. Taking place at LG Sciencepark throughout September, and involving various LG partner companies, LG SPARK opened last week with Super Start Day (September 7-8), which focused on how to support innovative startups to achieve growth. The festival continues with SDC 2023 and DX Fair 2023 (both September 14-15), where digital transformation takes center stage, and will conclude with Culture Week (September 20-22), which will provide a forum for Seoul residents, industry professionals and academia to discuss the future impact of technology on daily life.
“Software competitiveness is the key to being prepared for the future,” said Park In-sung, head of the Software Center at LG Electronics. “By increasing opportunities for its developers to freely communicate with one another, LG is accelerating the convergence of software technologies and becoming a smart life solution company that can connect the various spaces and experiences in customers’ lives.”