On January 28, 2021, DSU held an awards ceremony to mark the completion of the 6th “Practical Startup
Competition.” Held annually since 2015, this event was also held to announce the new start of the next competition.

Dongseo University has operated a variety of different business start-up training course types among the 88 it provides, including the Practical Startup Project and the Biz-Make Startup Club based on a specialized revitalization start-up education system. Students taking advantage of these courses have expressed a keen enthusiasm for their long entrepreneurship journey with DSU, actively participating in the education provided by DSU despite the difficulties posed by the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The centerpiece of the Practical Start-up Competition is the Startup Support Group’s awarding of the Startup Support Scholarship, with of aim of helping students wishing to start a business to realize their dreams. In this year’s online event, a total of 23 out of 65 on campus start-up teams made it through the first selection round, after which 15 finalists were selected through a document screening. In the final, 8 winning teams were selected through evaluations of their presentations, and a total of 53.55 million won was awarded, including 10 million won for the grand prize and 9 million won for the silver prize. The grand prize was won by the New Deal team consisting of junior students from the Division of Design, headed by Jang Hee-chan.

Jang and two other representative students participating in the competition were invited by DSU President Jekuk Chang to add their thoughts about the competition, and then to attend the ceremony in person to be congratulated and encouraged in their future endeavors before being presented their prizes.

Upon meeting with the students, President Chang said, “Through innovative start-up education, DSU aims to cultivate both the ‘talents who can inspire imagination beyond pedestrian thinking’ and the ‘talents with entrepreneurship and creativity’ that are essential in the era of the 4th industrial revolution. To this end, our university has created a start-up ecosystem through excellent start-up support infrastructure, and will spare no support to produce the best entrepreneurs in Korea through DSU’s unique start-up support platform.”

Prize-winning student Jang Hee-chan said, “While it is possible to enter the company I want, the path to doing so is difficult. So, I would rather create the company I want instead. Towards this goal, I want to further develop my dream of starting a business by utilizing DSU’s excellent start-up support platform. It is through the support of our university that we were able to win the grand prize for our facing our start-up challenge and executing our ideas, and we will strive to become a model for all DSU students who dream of starting a business by growing into a successful entrepreneur.”

“The Practical Start-up Competition is a process for discovering real star entrepre- neurs,” said Jeong Deo-woon, Director of the Practical Startup Project. “Dongseo University systematically fosters young entrepreneurs by linking government-supported projects such as early start-up packages, laboratory start-ups, and maker education. I believe that the comprehensive start-up support scholarship from e university will be useful as seed money for start-ups in the future. Through support initiatives such as these, DSU will continue to foster excellent startups by utilizing the nation's top-notch startup infrastructure.”

Under the slogan of ‘Easy Start-up,’ DSU, in addition its participation in the Practical Start- up Competition: aims to revitalize startup culture; is engaged in the Tium, Kiwoon, and Pium Practical Startup Projects; has established the LEGO Startup Academy; runs or is involved with the Biz-Make Start-up Club, PASTEL Start-up Club, Start-up TED, and AISW Start-up; operates annually customized support programs for various stages of start- ups such as clubs and hackathon competitions; and hosts and organizes laboratory start-up festivals.

Towards these many various ends, in 2020 DSU secured funding of approximately 7.5 billion won for 3 years from the Ministry of SMEs and Start-ups for its Initial Startup Package Support project, and also 3 billion won in funding for the same period for the Leading Laboratory Start-up University project from the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Science and ICT. Finally, with the additional support from the Ministry of SMEs and Start-ups of approximately 800 million won in funding for 5 years for the purposes of constructing and operating ‘MakerSpace’ start-up projects, DSU has achieved the com- pletion of a full-cycle start-up support platform that connects university start-up education from universities to the establishment and successful running of actual start-ups.