September 17th, 2019 at 4:10 pm UTC · 6 min read
Union Mobile recently announced the launch of their blockchain project called ELYNET which aims to provide differentiated mobile services using blockchain technology. The ELYNET team is composed of telecom veterans with more than 50 years of combined industry experience. They have harnessed this expertise to realize ELYNET’s innovative take on the telecom industry – to use blockchain technology to provide essential telecom services.
ELYNET’s team members are no strangers to innovation. As pioneers of major telecom industry changes, they were among the first in the world to successfully integrate OTA (over the air) programming for mobile devices. This is the technology that allows users to wirelessly download songs to their smartphones without having to rely on connecting the device to a computer.
Members of the ELYNET team are also to thank for many of the smartphone games available today, due to their work in embedding Java into mobile platforms. However, these innovations pale in comparison to the work the team is doing on ELYNET. The ELYNET project is slated to be the world’s first SIM-less blockchain telecom network that provides customers with worldwide mobile services at affordable prices.
ELYNET CEO Seyong Ro is well-known in the Korean telecom industry. He spent over 20 years at LG U+ and became one of the most prominent business executives in Korean telecom Prior to this, while at LG Electronics, where he bagan his career, he developed ASIC design programs and commercialized home IoT and convergence products.
With 20 years of experience under his belt, he was invited to the position of Vice President for LG U+. He began his tenure as leader of the Handset Data Business Division and continued to head the B2B Business Division, the New Business Planning Project Unit, and the Network Division of LG U+.
At LG U+, Ro successfully led projects for low-cost, high-efficiency LTE network deployments. He also led marketing campaigns which attracted some 2M+ subscribers in the first year. Ro’s LTE network is world renowned for its quality, speed, and efficiency; the expertise he brings to the ELYNET team is truly unique.
ELYNET’s CTO and visionary leader is Mr. Heeseung Lee. He is largely responsible for the concept behind ELYNET’s business model. Lee built his professional career of 20+ years as an engineer and business manager at LG Telecom. He also co-founded internet and mobile service ventures. He gained valuable experience at LG Telecom, where he led a variety of departments including the New Service Development Team.
Mr. Lee became equipped with the knowledge to provide telecom users with new verticals and added benefits in cost-efficient and clever ways. His experience and passion for discovering innovative technical solutions is a big asset to the ELYNET team; it was his insatiable curiosity and engineering background that inspired him to dive into the world of blockchain technology in early 2018. The result was the birth of the ELYNET project.
ELYNET’s final founder is its CFO Kevin Won. Won has extensive experience working for top Korean VC and security companies such as Hannuri, Hanmag Securities, and Shinwon Ventures. His main roles included investment analysis and consulting for international business opportunities. His experience and breadth of financial management are instrumental in the creation and maintenance of ELYNET’s global financial ecosystem.
Won and Lee met while the former was CEO of FeelingK, a telecom software solutions company. Won was part of the team that acquired the listed company (FeelingK) which sold MMS, SMS, and gaming platform solutions to clients such as LG Telecom and LG U+. Some of the many potential verticals for ELYNET are within ELYPORT, which offers gaming and m-commerce platforms. Won’s experience is certainly an asset for realizing ELYNET’s expansion into new areas.
David Koo is head of marketing for ELYNET. He worked closely with the ELYNET founding members for many years while at LG Telecom and joined the ELYNET project in its infancy.
During his tenure as marketing specialist at LG, he led multiple marketing initiatives famous in the Korean telecom industry. He spearheaded Khai marketing which was highly regarded as an innovative campaign to generate new mobile subscribers. Later in his professional career, Koo worked at SK Marketing & Company where he was responsible for developing and commercializing B2B marketing solutions which helped improve the CRM for multiple influential Korean firms.
Another crucial member of the ELYNET project is Johnathan Lee. He acted as an advisor for the project beginning in late 2018 but joined fulltime in June 2019. With an MBA in MIS from Texas, he started his career at Samsung SDS where he quickly became the IT consultant leader of their finance department, handling verticals such as Samsung Credit Card.
After the IMF incident, Lee became head of the Samsung SDS international business team. Here he worked to highlight the currency saving benefits to clients in the UK and US and significantly boosted company revenue.
Lee has worked closely with government officials, particularly when he was project manager for an Indonesian government initiative to boost the economy. Perhaps more impressively, he became a member of a presidential IT consulting group for the late Korean president Roh Moo-Hyun.
ELYNET CSO Patrick Kang was another late 2018 addition to the team. As a seasoned CPA, Kang is at the helm of ELYNET’s token economy, conceptualizing its two-tier currencies ELyX and ElyGO. Kang brings 16 years of financial and strategic advisory experience from KPMG. He worked in the KPMG Frankfurt office during a time when a number of prominent Korean business groups were aggressively implementing expansion strategies in the EU.
Among them were brands with global impact such as Hyundai and Kia Motors, in which he became involved in many projects. With Germany as one of ELYNET’s initial markets, Kang’s German business experience is vital to the strategy and launch of the service in that country and other European nations.
Collectively, the ELYNET team is gearing up to provide unprecedented benefits to the telecom industry. They are eager to showcase their innovations in blockchain, a technology previously dominated by cryptocurrencies and slow transaction speeds.
The ELYNET project, built on its very own ultra-fast mainnet, offers a tangible, revenue-generating use case for blockchain. Their team of seasoned telecom experts are dedicated to providing users with high quality telecom services at unprecedented prices and look forward to a successful global rollout.