Korea’s First Venture-launching Prof. Heui Jae Park of SNU “We Need a Korean Version of SEIS to Reinvigorate Start-ups”<?xml:namespace prefix = "o" ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

“The only way to reinvigorate the Korean economy is investing in technology startups and industry-academia cooperation. Universities and innovation-seeking businesses need to cooperate organically in order to revive the industry system.”

Professor Heui Jae Park of SNU Dept. of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (Photo) is the first professor to launch his own company in Korea. “I started the business with the purpose of succeeding in the market with my own technology,” he explained. SNU Precision, founded in February 1998, makes testing and measurement equipment for displays such as LCDs and OLEDs. Currently it is the number one company in the global market of LCD testing equipment. 80% of its sales is from the international market.

“Twenty years ago, they even changed regulations limiting professors from having double jobs in order to encourage venture businesses. But now things are even worse than before in technology ventures,” Prof. Park commented. adding that universities only focus on knowledge that is completely unrelated to the market and that nobody cares about what kind of technology is really needed in the industry.

He emphasized the importance of a ‘large-scale industry-academia cooperation platform.’ “No professor will directly approach a company saying that ‘if you develop my technology, you can beat China.’ We need a consortium where business and universities are organically connected, cultivating core technologies like one ecosystem.”

Prof. Park also predicted that industry-academia collaboration and technology ventures might help with the problem of youth unemployment, taking Germany’s Fraunhofer. “Young people working in Fraunhofer institutes receive half the salary of what they might receive in large companies. But everyone wants to work there because they can learn advanced core technologies from university professors, which is a major advantage in starting their own businesses.”

Prof. Park added the necessity of financial support. “Even if you have a great technology, without the ‘2%’ of funding and promotion, you can’t be successful at launching a start-up.” He said that we should take inspiration from UK’s ‘SEIS initiative.’ If you invest in a start-up and it fails, you can receive up to 75% of your original investment in other forms like tax refunds. After 3 years of launching SEIS, the number of companies in the Northern part of London increased from 15 to 2000.

Link to article: http://news.hankyung.com/article/2019011617651