The Korea Rural Community Corporation and CAD have recently signed a partnership agreement to exchange professionals in order to enhance knowledge transfer and promote more innovative services and product development.

Through this agreement, Seung Won Lee has recently joined the Global CAD team at its headquarters in Barcelona for a one-year exchange program. Seung Won is an expert in rural development and is program manager in Capacity Development Programs for Officials from Developing Countries at KRC.

The Korean Rural Community Corporation (KRC) is a state-run company whose mission since 1908 has been to develop and maintain agriculture and rural infrastructure development.

Due to the saturation of its domestic market, KRC is now looking to expand its business overseas. To learn from the experience at first hand, KRC has been mobilizing visiting researchers overseas during the last few years. So far, all of the exchanges had been made with universities and research centers, while this is the first time the exchange is done with a consulting firm.

The main purpose of this collaboration between KRC and CAD is to understand the trends and methodologies applied to socio-economic projects for developing countries, with special emphasis in the areas of rural development and technology as a driver on water and energy markets.

The exchange process will also help CAD develop a more thorough strategy for Asian markets and the documentation process will be summarized in a joint publication which will emphasize innovation trends and major lessons learned of the knowledge exchange.