Bangkok--Mar 24--Francom Asia
Airtimes: Sunday, March 27 at 19:30
Monday, March 28 at 02:30 (replay)
Saturday, April 2 at 05:00 and 18:30 (replays)
In a special edition of CNN’s SPARK this month, host Kristie Lu Stout travels to Seoul and explores the latest gadgets in this cutting-edge city.
Stout kicks off the program reporting on mobile banking, where wireless masses are using their third generation handsets to transfer money, review transaction records and other financial data. She talks to the pioneer of this new technology, the CEO of South Korea’s largest bank Kookmin, and finds out his intent to turn at least one person out of every two Korean households into a mobile banking user. Kookmin CEO Kang Chung-won looks beyond and talks about his plans to expand internationally. “Once we have a critical mass of customers in Korea, I think it makes sense to go global.”
The half-hour program also features South Korea’s online industry and looks at OhmyNews.com, a news-based website powered by a team of 36,000 citizen journalists, and attracting half a million visitors a day. Stout speaks to the founder Oh Yeon Ho and a citizen reporter who earned US$5,000 for her stories.
Additionally, SPARK explores cyber gaming, a televised sports event, and interviews the marketing whiz behind the World Cyber Games about his plans for greater global reach.
Tune into CNN’s SPARK this weekend to find out more about South Korea’s innovative mobile phones, including the Digital Media Broadcast (DMB) handset which allows users to watch television in real-time. SPARK also visits Samsung Electronics 10-thousand square foot technology playground, the ‘Experience Store’ in New York, showcasing on display products to win over tech savvy American consumers.
Click for photo release at www.thaipr.net End.