All ‘right’ from start-up to success
2nd year of the Ph.D. course at the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Hee Min Gwak
· Excellence Award at the 2019 National Youth Start-up Idea Contest
· Grand Prize at the 2019 GIST Start-up Idea Contest
· Grand Prize at the 2019 South Korean Energy Contest Start-up Sector
With the job market becoming unstable, more students are opting for start-ups. The problem
is having bright ideas. We met with Hee Min Gwak who is in the process of a start-up after
successfully sweeping prizes at start-up idea contests both in and out of school.
How did you become interested in start-ups?
GIST provides not only start-up centers and start-up clubs as well as various related lectures for the
purpose of researching good ideas and technologies within the campus but also for connecting
them to actual start-ups. As I was interested in start-ups, I took a class called practical start-up
theory, and I was able to obtain various information, starting from government support to recent
start-up trends. As I prepared the business plan with the objective of a start-up as part of the
class, I was able to naturally connect the theme to start-up ideas. I was able to start a start-up
team called ‘Right’ with friends in the research center who were taking the class with me.
Can you tell us about your start-up ideas?
The advantages of LED is that it is brighter, consumes less electricity, and lasts longer when
compared to the existing fluorescent light. 80% of the government institutes have already
replaced lightings with LED. Meanwhile, the distribution rate within household is significantly low.
This is because it costs too much to replace the lighting with LED. The entire lighting apparatus
has to be changed. The idea that have come up to resolve such problem is the ‘LED module that
can be installed in anywhere you desire.’ LED lighting was invented so that it could be installed in
the existing fluorescent lighting without replacement, and this idea was used to prepare for the
start-up. The objective of ‘Right’ is to distribute LED to all households.
How did you start participating in start-up idea contests both in and out of school?
Concerning my ideas, I participated in several contests with my business proposal. As I am involved
in researching about the inconveniences that people feel, my ideas began from trying to resolve
them. I think applying the areas that consumer experience in their daily life to the research field
appropriately hit the mark, and I was fortunately able to obtain good results. Of course, the
prize money is also contributing greatly to preparing a start-up.
What are your future plans
There is still a long way to go until the start-up. Unlike idea contests, the actual start-up is a big
obstacle. We also need to resolve legal issues such as design and patent applications, and we also
have to get more investment funds. There are still a lot of areas for improvement but without
stopping at the ideas, I think participating in start-up contests and continuously challenging
towards start-up motivates me further. In the future, I think I would be able to gather more initial
investment funds through preliminary entrepreneur support package from the government in the
second half of this year. Next year, the objective is to obtain the business registration certificate
and to create 1,000 samples to test the market response. I seek your continuous support.
