SID: The Society for “Interactive” Display?
by Yong-Seog Kim President, Society for Information Display
Greetings and a warm welcome to all at Display Week 2017 in Los Angeles!
As of this writing, final preparations are under way as SID heads to Los Angeles for its annual Display Week event. Los Angeles is a beautiful city that is well known for its movie industry and international culture. Therefore, the Los Angeles Convention Center (LACC) is a perfect fit for this year’s Display Week: SID has been covering more augmented-reality (AR) and virtual-reality (VR) technology in recent years, and half of its membership is now from countries other than the US. Los Angeles is easily accessible, with many daily nonstop flights from major cities throughout Asia, Europe, and the US. It’s important to note that the neighborhood immediately surrounding the LACC has been recently redeveloped, making the environment safer and more convenient for the attendees of Display Week. I hope you will enjoy LA during your visit to Display Week 2017.
It’s an exciting time for SID, as we continue to grow and adapt to newly developing technologies related to information displays. When SID was established in 1962, cathode ray tube (CRT) was the dominant display technology. Over the past two decades, Display Week became the must-visit event for the introduction of new flat-panel technologies and products. Now, as the result of intense research activity, flat-panel display technology has become fairly mature, and SID is again morphing its focus to include new areas such as AR/VR, vehicular displays, and wearable displays, to name just a few.
To provide a forum at Display Week for newly developing technologies, SID creates special technology tracks each year within its technical symposium. This year’s tracks are AR/VR, Digital Signage Display Solutions, Display Materials and Processes, and Wearable Displays. These special tracks have always drawn significant interest from attendees and in past years have attracted large audiences – sometimes as many as 500 people – to the sessions. This is in part a reflection of the rapidly growing industry of system integration in the United States, which in turn is reflected in the growth of US SID members in recent years. This US membership growth is coming from the system integrators rather than the core panel-display industry, which is now based primarily in Asia.
Display Week Is a Hub for System Integrators, Material Suppliers, and Panel Makers
The rapid growth of the system integration industry sector in the US puts SID in a unique position within the information display industry. Display Week has become the place where display material suppliers from Europe, panel makers from Asia, and system integrators from the US meet to discuss the future of the display industry. Display Week provides the ideal forum for these attendees to share their visions and to find ways to collaborate with each other in their research as well as in product development.
As is the case every year, Display Week 2017 promises to reveal many exciting technical developments. The event will kick off with keynote presentations featuring three renowned leaders in the fields of OLED displays, AR/VR, and vehicular electronics. These keynote presentations have always been a source of inspiration and a signpost to where the industry is heading. This year will be no exception.
With all the new and developing technology fields in our symposium, including vehicular displays, the number of submitted manuscripts has increased approximately 15% over last year. Therefore, the symposium will have many high-quality, exciting, and ground-breaking presentations.
In the exhibit hall at Display Week, companies will showcase both prototypes and market-ready products, including wallpaper-type OLED TVs, high dynamic range (HDR) TVs, and flexible displays and related materials. The Innovation Zone, or I-Zone, made its first appearance on the exhibit floor in 2012, and more emerging prototypes will be shown in this sixth year of the I-Zone. These and many other significant developments will be on display at the show, making Display Week 2017 a fun place to discover new display technologies.
Changes, Challenges, and Opportunities
Even with our continuing efforts to remain a relevant and leading society for the information display field, SID is facing tough challenges ahead during a time of major shifts in panel manufacturing to China and the emergence of OLEDs over TFT-LCD technologies. These changes will cause hardships for some of our individual and corporate members, but provide opportunities to grow for other sectors. SID is going to meet these challenges and continue to prosper during a time of global change. The world of information display is an exciting one in which to develop and do business, and we’ll continue to meet and bring inspired people together in forums like Display Week, to ensure that SID remains at the cutting edge of technology.
Before I close, I’d like to recognize Past President Amal Ghosh for his extraordinary efforts to secure the Los Angeles Convention Center for this year’s gathering after our prior arrangements fell through at the end of last year. This type of mishap has never happened in SID’s 53-year history and Amal, president at that time, had to scramble to find an alternative venue as time was running out. SID is indebted to Amal for his hard work in finding and negotiating with the LACC in such a small window of opportunity.
I’d also like to thank each of you for attending our Display Week 2017 Technical Symposium and Exhibition, and for bringing your expertise to our gathering. Your individual vision, knowledge, and experience help us pave the way for the future of the Society for Information Display. You, our members, are truly our greatest asset today and tomorrow, and we could not accomplish what we do without your support and participation. Throughout this conference, I ask you to stay engaged, keep us proactive, and help shape the future of SID. My personal respect and thanks go out to all of you. •