Wusuk Kang is the founder and CEO of the A*, Inc. (U.S.), R* Inc. (South Korea), and N* S.L. (Spain). His companies develop and service database development and management tool-sets for database developers, administrators, and analysts. In 1994, he served as the CTO of Internet Korea Corporation and contributed to South Korea’s now world-class internet ecosystem.
Born in 1963 in Korea, Wusuk Kang had an outstanding career in the film and media industry, including nonprofit organizations and academia, before becoming a full-fledged entrepreneur. He founded the Seoul Cinema Club (1991), which helped over 2,500 members engage and take part in the Korean film industry. His first weekly film newspaper, Cinema Journal (1992), drew hundreds of thousands of copies weekly, triggering a cinema Renaissance in the early 1990s. The Institute of Korea Film House (1993-2000), which he founded, provided film and animation workshops to over 2,000 children and youth across the country. Also, he founded and ran seven international film festivals, including Korea’s first-ever, the Environmental Film Festival in 1994. His work in the film industry concluded after the creation of the world’s first online film festival in 2001. As a result, there are 38 various domestic or international film festivals every year in Korea.
Wusuk Kang was also passionate about nonprofit organizations, and in 1988, he created a cultural club for residents was the beginning. He founded the 21st Century Frontier (1993-2008) and played a key role in laying the foundation of public debate and discourse with over 500 members, made up of professors, lawyers, doctors, researchers, journalists, poets, and experts in various fields. Also, he created the KAIST CEO Club (2001-2004), which discussed business ethics and corporate innovation with over 390 members.
From 1995 to 2001, he worked primarily in academia. He taught film studies or film making at several schools, including the Graduate School of Media at Sogang University. Kang was a visiting researcher at the Institute of Media Art of Yonsei University (1998-1999) and served on the board of directors (1998-2001) with the Korean Society for the Gifted and Talented. He also wrote film-related articles in several film weekly and monthly magazines, and in 1999 he published a paper about the Korean film industry.
In 2005, he had immigrated to the United States with his family and studied American Studies at a university to further his understanding of American culture and history. He received his bachelor’s degree in 2011 and graduated valedictorian. In 2015, he enrolled in Fairleigh Dickinson University to study the rapidly changing business environment and completed his coursework in 2017. He received the Petrocelli College Dean’s Award for Continuing Education as a graduate who has been working as a member of the Founder’s Society at Fairleigh Dickinson University since 2018 due to appoint from the President of the university. As a lifelong learner, he has completed non-degree courses in four institutions from 1989 to 2011. In 1989, he finished Publishing College, Korea’s most prestigious course for editors and publishers. It ranked him 1st in the MBA course of KAIST (2001) and received the Distinguished Service Medal. In 2011, he completed coursework at the School of Professional Studies at New York University.
Since December 2016, he runs a blog called “Life is a story,” which is based on his various personal experiences. He has published over 700 articles so far. His writings range from travel essays to deep philosophical reflection. His writings cover a broad scope of topics, from literature, film, culture, education, parenting, photography, and even the future of artificial intelligence. He classifies his life in Korea as the first stage, with the second lasting up to his induction as an American citizen in 2018. What will Wusuk Kang do in the third stage of his life? In fact, he recently set a goal of going to a U.S. Law school and getting an Attorney’s license for the community service as an immigrant, as a minority, and as a passionate and thoughtful global citizen. That may be the starting point for the third phase of his life.