Only non-Seoul area university selected, up to 2 billion won in funding for 3 years
Act as ‘Control Tower’ for venture start-up related organization in university
Expected to strengthen actual start-up capacities of college students and promote venture start-ups
Student venture start-up performance rising at Seoul National University and Hanyang University that operates Entrepreneur Centers
[Jun 28, 2015]
<‘YU Venture Start-up Culture Road Show’ held at the YU Cheonma Art Center in February'>
YU (President Noh Seok-kyun) was selected for the ‘College Entrepreneur Center’ and will thus accelerate support for student start-ups.
YU was selected as a host university for the Korea Institute of Start Up & Entrepreneurship Development’s (Director Kang Si-woo) ‘2015 College Entrepreneur Center’ on the 25th and will be funded up to 2 billion won for the next three years. KISED designed this product to provide support so that colleges can be a cradle for fostering global entrepreneurs. It aims at supporting the strengthening the practical start-up education of colleges, construct and promote internal and external networks, and provide relevant education programs. YU became the only non-Seoul general university to host this project and is thus expected to act as a hub for supporting the start-up of college students in the region.
KISED received applications from universities nationwide and made a general assessment through reviews on business plans submitted by universities, field inspections and face-to-face interviews. In result, YU was finally selected as the university to be supported for this program. In particular, YU was given high marks for possessing its own start-up infrastructure and a solid alumni network in both Korea and abroad. Furthermore, it received good assessments for its graduate school newly offering an entrepreneur spirit major, as well as its ‘two track strategy’ of simultaneously opening venture start-up courses and in-company entrepreneur courses.
YU became the first to offer an entrepreneur major in its graduate school in Korea, and students in the departments of business administration, mechanical engineering and chemical engineering will be required to complete this as a mandatory course. Furthermore, it will become the first and only in the nation to open start-up courses and in-company entrepreneur courses as two-tracks. This is expected to help students not only who wish to start up their own business, but also students aiming to become employed in companies and current company workers to enhance their entrepreneur spirit.
By being selected for this program, YU will carry out the program for three years from July of this year to June 2018. The program may be extended for an additional three years through a performance evaluation. The YU Entrepreneur Center will act as a control tower for the start-up fostering center and start-up education center that YU is currently operating, and it is also expected that industry-academic cooperation will be further solidified by connecting with the LINC business team. YU is planning to further solidify the venture start-up support organization within the university, open start-up education courses, develop education modules and contents, procure exclusive faculty and foster start-up experts, construct networks with specialized institutes pertaining to start-ups, and support start-up contests and venture start-up clubs to concentrate on strengthening the actual start-up capacities of students.
The College Entrepreneur Center program is currently in operation at six universities from last year including Seoul National University, KAIST, POSTECH, Hanyang University, Sookmyung Women’s University, and Inha University. These universities not only offered start-up related education, but also supported item selection, prototype production, and pioneering sales channels, which are being shown through the achievements by venture start-ups by students.
Hanyang University, which established its Entrepreneur Center in 2009, led to the successful start-up of 20 students last year. Hanyang University offered the ‘Hanyang Start Up Academy’ for students to provide education on business feasibility analysis, financial design, and marketing. In particular, having engineering students take ‘techno management’ classes was assessed to greatly contribute in student start ups. In reality, ‘Office N (CEO Han Sang-won)’, which provides contents on corporate cultures, is a success case of start-ups through the ‘Hanyang Start Up Academy’. Office N CEO Han Sang-won participated in special lectures for ‘techno management’ to provide startup know-how to juniors. In addition, Lim Sung-hwan, who is enrolled in the Hanyang University Department of Chemistry started up the cosmetic and health product distribution and manufacturer ‘SeoSeo’ as a student in 2013 and brought up his business expecting to bring in 500 million won in sales this year. Mr. Lee began production of hair wax prototypes, cosmetic product imports and sales with cosmetic franchises with the assistance of the College Entrepreneur Center.
Achievements are being made at the Seoul National University Venture Management Entrepreneur Center that was established in September of last year. SNU provided start-up education for students who selected the ‘venture management combined major’ as their double major and sent them to areas such as Silicon Valley in the United States to provide full support to raise their abilities as future business start-up owners. Kang Hyun-wook (24) who double majors in venture management and social education at SNU established ‘Bepro’ that manages the records of amateur soccer players in February of this year with the assistance of professors at the center with experience operating venture capitals. In just four months, this start-up signed data management contracts with the youth leagues of the Professional Football Association.
Also, the Inha University Entrepreneur Center is operating a start-up support program called ‘Start Up Therapy’. It selects students with excellent start-up items through contests to provide start-up education, and provides full support so that they may compete in the market.
