Shane Coughlan

Tokyo, February 10, 2022 – NEC Corporation (NEC; TSE: 6701), a leading global provider of IT and network technologies, has joined the OpenChain Project as a Platinum Member and will assume a governing board seat. The OpenChain Project builds trust in the supply chain by making open source license compliance simpler and more consistent, and maintains OpenChain ISO/IEC 5230, the international standard for open source license compliance.

“NEC has played a significant role in the development of the global OpenChain community,” says Shane Coughlan, OpenChain General Manager. “As we welcome NEC to the OpenChain governing board we look forward to deepening our collaboration. We share a vision of a supply chain with greater trust and effectiveness. Today we have taken another important step towards that goal.”

“NEC is well aware of the importance of security and compliance in the open source supply chain and we respect OpenChain’s leadership in this field.” says Kimio Suganuma, Head of the OSS Promotion Center and Emerging SI Technology Development Division, Digital Business Platform Unit, NEC. “We have decided to join as a platinum member to show our approval and support of the open source ecosystem.”

About NEC Corporation

NEC Corporation has established itself as a leader in the integration of IT and network technologies while promoting the brand statement of “Orchestrating a brighter world.” NEC enables businesses and communities to adapt to rapid changes taking place in both society and the market as it provides for the social values of safety, security, fairness and efficiency to promote a more sustainable world where everyone has the chance to reach their full potential. For more information, visit NEC at https://www.nec.com.

About the OpenChain Project

The OpenChain Project maintains the international standard for open source license compliance. This allows companies of all sizes and in all sectors to adopt the key requirements of a quality open source compliance program. This is an open standard and all parties are welcome to engage with our community, to share their knowledge, and to contribute to the future of our standard.

About The Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is the organization of choice for the world’s top developers and companies to build ecosystems that accelerate open technology development and industry adoption. Together with the worldwide open source community, it is solving the hardest technology problems by creating the largest shared technology investment in history. Founded in 2000, The Linux Foundation today provides tools, training and events to scale any open source project, which together deliver an economic impact not achievable by any one company. More information can be found at www.linuxfoundation.org.

The Linux Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of The Linux Foundation, please see our trademark usage page: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/trademark-usage.

Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

Today Kakao Corporation announces an OpenChain ISO/IEC 5230 conformant program. Kakao Corporation is South Korea’s mobile life platform company that provides innovative services in global mobile and internet markets.

“More industries are increasing their use of open source, which importance is increasing day after day” says Charles Chung, CTO of Kakao. “Kakao will proactively share the open source competency we have accumulated to spearhead advancements in the development ecosystem. By acquiring certification for the International Standard for open source compliance, OpenChain ISO 5230, Kakao has been recognized for our ability to use open source. The OpenChain ISO 5230 certification will also help strengthen the reputation of ‘Olive Platform’, Kakao’s open source license identification and verification service.”

“The Korean community has been instrumental in building and supporting OpenChain ISO/IEC 5230, the International standard for open source license compliance,” says Shane Coughlan, OpenChain General Manager. “We are delighted to celebrate today’s conformance announcements by Kakao and KakaoBank, underlining the leadership and energy in the local market. Our shared supply chain is becoming clearer, more trusted and more efficient thanks to these efforts.”

About Kakao

Kakao Corporation is a mobile life platform company that provides innovative services in global mobile and internet markets, building on its employees with profound knowledge and experience, technological capabilities, quality contents and highly competitive mobile traffic. Under the corporate vision, “Making a better world with people and technology”, we connect everything in our everyday lives, enabling anyone to experience innovations on a daily basis. The Kakao Corporation headquarters can be found on Jeju Island, with an integrated metropolitan office in Pangyo, where over 2,300 employees in total are working today. Daum Communications, established in 1995, and Kakao, founded in 2006, merged on October 1, 2014 to become Daum Kakao. The name of the company was changed to Kakao on September 23, 2015 to become a company that stands at the forefront of the mobile era.

Today Kakaobank announces an OpenChain ISO/IEC 5230 conformant program. It is the first financial company in Korea and the second worldwide to formally adopt the International Standard for open source compliance.

“The use of open source is a trend and essential for all IT industries,” says Shin Jae-Hong, Chief Information Officer(CIO) of Kakaobank. “As Kakaobank is the first Korean financial company to be a part of OpenChain, We will accelerate innovative financial business possibilities through Ai, Big data, and Cloud based on our open source ability”

“The Korean community has been instrumental in building and supporting OpenChain ISO/IEC 5230, the International standard for open source license compliance,” says Shane Coughlan, OpenChain General Manager. “We are delighted to celebrate today’s conformance announcements by Kakao and KakaoBank, underlining the leadership and energy in the local market. Our shared supply chain is becoming clearer, more trusted and more efficient thanks to these efforts.”

About Kakaobank

Kakaobank is the biggest mobile-first bank in South Korea. Established in January 2016, the bank launched its public service in July 2017 after obtaining a final full banking license in April 2017. The bank attracted 240,000 customers within the first 24 hours of starting service. At the end of December 2021, Kakaobank holds 17.9 million users and 15.7 million account holders, around 60% of economically-active population in South Korea.

Kakaobank provides full-banking products via its mobile application, enabling customers to enjoy our services easier and faster. Kakaobank is looking to become a customer-centric bank under our slogan of “Helping you use banking services easier in your daily life” by providing a variety of essential financial products.