Wins Excellence Award at the 2024 Science and Technology Startup Competition

- Selected for the Excellence Award at the final round of the 2024 Science and Technology Startup Competition on Tuesday, September 3 -

- Advanced to the finals of Korea's largest startup competition, [Challenge! K-Startup (Startup Enterprises)] -

 Professor Han-ul Jeong (School of Semiconductor System Engineering, pictured on the right) participated in the '2024 Science and Technology Startup Competition' organized by the Ministry of Science and ICT and won the Excellence Award in the startup category (Promotion Agency Director's Award).

This competition also served as a preliminary round to select startup and pre-startup teams for the finals of the [Challenge! K-Startup] event. While it was previously co-hosted with the Ministry of Education in the 'Student Category,' it has been solely organized by the Ministry of Science and ICT in the 'Researcher Category' since last year to promote the commercialization of scientific and technological advancements.

This year's competition saw the participation of 82 teams (33 pre-startup teams and 49 startup teams), who applied between April 4 (Thursday) and May 10 (Friday). After a document review (in May) and online presentations (in June), 20 teams (10 pre-startup and 10 startup teams) were selected for the final evaluation.

The evaluation results included 1 Grand Prize, 1 Excellence Award, and 3 Encouragement Awards for both the startup and pre-startup categories. Professor Han-ul Jeong, representing Articron Co., Ltd., won the Excellence Award in the startup category. The winning teams will receive the opportunity to advance to the 2024 [Challenge! K-Startup (Startup Enterprises)] integrated finals, along with capacity-building consulting from an advisory group.

Pan-sik Hwang, Director of Research and Development Policy at the Ministry of Science and ICT, emphasized the importance of science and technology-based startups, stating, "Startups driven by scientific and technological innovation are a crucial means of transforming groundbreaking lab technologies into social and economic value through the market. The Ministry of Science and ICT will continue to fully support innovative startup initiatives as part of its efforts to promote the commercialization of science and technology," encouraging both startup and pre-startup teams.

Meanwhile, the [Challenge! K-Startup] competition, where Professor Han-ul Jeong will compete in the finals, is the largest startup competition in Korea, co-organized by 11 government ministries to expand the startup culture. A total of 6,187 teams will participate, with the final 20 teams set to receive awards, including the Presidential Award, in the competition scheduled for this December.