"The out of ordinary, autonomous driving shuttle bus... public good to solve traffic problems" Article on March 22

Han Ji-hyeong alumnus  (School of Mechanical Engineering) ⓒ Seoul Newspaper

On March 22, the Seoul Newspaper introduced Han Ji-hyeong, an alumnus of Hanyang University and a representative of Autonomous A2z, which attracted attention as a native autonomous driving solution. a2z is the only pure domestic technology to rank 13th in the global-autonomous driving technology comprehensive ranking recently released by Guidehouse Insight, an international market research firm. As of the end of last month, a2z operated 32 self-driving cars, the largest number in Korea, and has a driving record of 264,250 kilometers, the longest in Korea. The current corporate value of the alumni Han's startup, which marks its fifth year in business, is estimated to be at least KRW 200 billion.

Alumnus Han graduated from Hanyang University's School of Mechanical Engineering and joined Hyundai Motor in January 2007. After developing an engine transmission powertrain at Namyang Research and Development, he moved to Uiwang Central Research and Development, which discovers future growth engines, in 2014, and joined the autonomous driving development team. Since then, he has left a stable conglomerate with four Hyundai Motor colleagues and co-founded the company after being offered to provide start-up support along with a job offer as an industry-academic professor in charge of Kyungil University's Autonomous Driving Research Institute.

Alumnus Han is trying to enter the self-driving shuttle bus business first so that autonomous driving vehicles as public goods can solve urban traffic problems. He said that the approach of autonomous driving as a public good is to commercialize autonomous driving buses with cheap urban infrastructure. Finally, Han alumnus stressed that cooperation between the government and companies must be achieved in the process to open the national economy and industry and have global competitiveness.