▲ eBook Academy / Director Lee Ki-sung

(PowerKorea) It was in the 90s that e-publishing started to emerge in South Korea. The Korea Electronic Publishing Association set sail in 1992 and a number of publishers jumped in the new market. The spread of smart phones and tablet PCs from 2010 expanded the market and it is now becoming a new standard of people reading books on the go. 

Lee Ki-sung, the director of eBook Academy, is the first son of Lee Dae-ui, CEO of the publishing company Jangwangsa. Lee Dae-ui was one who published textbooks in Korean during the after-Liberation era where Korean textbooks were nearly none. Passing down his father’s enterprising spirit, Lee Ki-sung made a great contribution in leading the KSC-5601-92 standardization which realized 11,172 letters of Korean alphabet during the time that only 4,280 letters were possible.

He led the founding of the Korea Digital Publishing Society in 1982 and started to teach e-publishing at Dongguk University Graduate School of Journalism in 1988 for the first time in the world. In 1995, he opened e-publishing major in computer design department at Kaywon University of Art & Design for the first time in the nation in 1995 followed by the development of the world’s first ceramic font in 2000. 

As talented and passionate he is, Lee has served various roles: director of the Publication Industry Promotion Agency of Korea, director of the Korea Digital Publishing Society, director of the Korea Contents Publishing Society, deputy director of the Korea Electronic Publishing Association, director of the Korea Editing Society and director of the Korea Electronic Publishing Institute.

He took part in the government-led development of various fonts in the 90s, published 77 e-books including the 3 million copy sold <Computers Are Cans 1> and has written 126 academic papers on publishing. He also taught students at Kaywon University of Art & Design, Shingu College, Global Cyber University and Dongguk University. 

Establishing eBook Academy in 2011, he has been running various e-publishing courses: Thursday publishing special, e-publishing special, history of Korean publishing industry, Korean font design and Korean communications publishing. Lee also is the one who participate as the Korean representative in the East Asia Typography Conference held by South Korea, China and Japan since 2017. 

His passionate research and development in Korean publishing industry led him to have received numerous prizes: presidential citation, prime minister’s citation, special prize from the Korean Printers Association, runner-up prize at the Korea Academic Publishing Awards and grand prize at the Korea Book Awards.

“It is my greatest ambition to make and supply ‘e-book editor’ for everybody to make contents that contains letters, photos, pictures, video images and voice” says Lee. 

PowerKorea is an official partner of Herald Corporation. The magazine is distributed to the KOTRA business centers in the world. PowerKorea publishes latest news of government, Samsung, Hyundai and LG and endeavors to serve a platform to engage with people around the world.