This Is What Industry-Academia Projects Are... UNIST Wins Two Ministerial Awards at First Challenge Competition

Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology Design Department Wins Two Minister of Industry Awards in 'Industry-Academia Project Challenge'
Development of Electric Mobility Aid and Smart Safety Helmet ... Supporting Product Development for Local

Two graduate student teams from the Department of Design at UNIST won two Ministerial Awards at the 1st Industry-Academia Project Challenge.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Kim Yong-woo] Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST, President Lee Yong-hoon) has reaped the fruits of an industry-academia cooperation project conducted with local companies.

Graduate students from the UNIST Department of Design won two Ministerial Awards at the ‘1st Industry-Academia Project Challenge’ hosted by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.

The award-winning teams are ‘Team Anybaro,’ a collaboration between UNIST and The Balance Korea, and ‘Team Wave,’ composed of UNIST and HHS Co., Ltd.

This competition evaluated the outcomes of industry-academia projects by graduate students participating in the ‘Industrial Innovation Talent Growth Support Project’ supported by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and the Korea Institute for Advancement of Technology (KIAT).

A total of 215 teams participated in the competition, and 20 teams were selected in the final round, with 10 teams receiving the Ministerial Award from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and 10 teams receiving the KIAT President’s Award.

Electric exercise assist device developed by the Anybaro team.

Team Anybaro, which won in the Creative Innovation Design category, was recognized for its achievement in developing an ‘IoT-based electric exercise assist device.’

Students guided by Professors Kim Kwan-myung and Lee Hee-seung of UNIST collaborated with The Balance Korea, located in Nam-gu, Ulsan, achieving results in design registration and patent discovery. They also succeeded in product development based on this.

The product helps maintain body balance, corrects spinal imbalance, and can prevent related diseases.

Team Wave received excellent evaluations in the Convergent Design for New Technology category. The outcome of the industry-academia project conducted with HHS Co., Ltd., located in Buk-gu, Ulsan, is a ‘smart safety helmet.’

Smart helmet developed by Team Wave.

In this project, led by Professors Kim Hwang and Kim Kwan-myung as research supervisors, they developed a safety helmet that detects workers’ brainwaves and wirelessly transmits information to improve safety in industrial sites.

Professor Kim Kwan-myung of the Department of Design said, “The UNIST Department of Design has been dedicated to nurturing talent equipped with design sensibility, engineering knowledge, and practical experience through participation in various projects. As a result of these efforts, we were able to be selected as an excellent industry-academia cooperation project in the design field at this competition.”

The two awarded projects also took their first steps through Ulsan City’s ‘Regional Industry-Academia Innovation Project.’ Since 2017, Ulsan City has been promoting projects to enhance the competitiveness of local companies based on UNIST’s research capabilities and industry-academia cooperation network.

Through this, UNIST recruits corporate members from local companies and operates support programs.

The Balance Korea and HHS Co., Ltd. promoted industry-academia cooperation with UNIST through corporate demand technology development research tasks that discover and solve technical difficulties in the corporate field, achieving results that led to product development.

This award served as another opportunity to recognize the excellence of these achievements.

Kwon Soon-yong, head of the UNIST Industry-Academia Cooperation Group, said, “UNIST is promoting various industry-academia cooperation projects that can grow together with companies in the Ulsan region. We plan to continuously expand cooperation to advance existing industries and discover new growth engines.”

The Industry-Academia Project Challenge recruited participating teams through a public contest in August. After preliminary and final rounds, the final award-winning teams were selected on the 1st of this month.

Each team awarded the Ministerial Award from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy receives a certificate and a prize of 2 million KRW.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.