[Mission] APEC 2025: 3rd Senior Officials' Meeting and Related Meetings (SOM3) on August 5th
2025-08-12This year, Korea, a country known for its technological advancements and rich cultural heritage, will host the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) 2025. APEC, a regional economic forum established in 1989 with 21 members, holds an annual meeting. During the meeting, leaders from these various economies come together to discuss ways to promote innovation, regional economic integration, and sustainable development. The 3rd Senior Officials' Meeting and Related Meetings (SOM3) was held in Incheon on August 5th. As an Honorary Reporter, I had the opportunity to attend.
Whilst there, we were given an overview of what APEC does, the themes that will be discussed in the main meetings taking place in Gyeongju in October 2025, and, as the theme of the day was digitalisation and AI, we also had the opportunity to meet various leading companies to discuss their current projects. Honestly, to a lay person like me, a lot of it seemed almost like magic, and there were a few projects that particularly stood out:
1. Google Gemini - This is a virtual assistant that offers multimodal interaction, rapid data analysis, and the ability to answer complex questions within seconds. Whilst Gemini is currently available to the broader public, at the conference, we received a demonstration of the more advanced version used internally at Google offices.
2. Persona.ai - This is also an AI assistant. Whilst not as advanced as the Gemini assistant, what is interesting about it is that you can create your own AI avatar with different looks, ages, ethnicities, genders, and speak with it in multiple languages. Not only will it help you, but it will do so in your language and make it look human-like with the lip-syncing technology that they use.
3. Konan Chatbot - This is a 2-way AI interpreter system. It instantly translated what I was saying in English into Korean and what the person across from me was saying in Korean into English. It also managed to translate what I was saying in Russian to English, and then to Korean!
However, beyond the serious conversations about AI, the conference also offered more light-hearted activities. These included getting your name written in Hangul (Korean writing system) by a calligraphy expert, going on a virtual stamp tour to learn more about K-foods & K-agriculture, and getting the whole cultural experience by trying out the hanbok & learning more about the Korean traditional culture. What stood out to me the most on a personal level was the research into domestically grown functional premium pet food currently being produced by the Rural Development Administration. To me, it shows that the government aims to take care of everyone who lives in Korea, including our dear furry babies.
All in all, the day was both fun and informative. I learned a great deal about various technological advancements within the APEC economic region, including virtual assistants like Google Gemini, AI avatars like Persona.ai, and 2-way AI interpreter systems like Konan Chatbot. I look forward to the outcomes of the meetings and the potential impact of these innovations on our future.
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