GIST Hosts '2020 GIST CEO Forum' During Science Culture Week

Photo of the 6th 2021 GIST CEO Forum event. Photo by GIST

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Cho Hyung-joo] GIST (Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology) announced on the 5th that it held the '2021 GIST CEO Forum' on the 3rd in celebration of the '2021 GIST Science Culture Week.'

Now in its 6th year, this forum was organized to gather the excellent capabilities of local startup-related organizations and explore ways to activate technology startups. It is a startup forum event where CEOs leading science, technology, startups, and the regional economy can be met all at once.

This year, to prevent the spread of COVID-19, the event was conducted via real-time online streaming. The Eventus platform was used to recruit pre-registrants for a mock crowdfunding session related to the investment company briefing (IR), and over 220 people applied, confirming high interest in startups.

For the investment IR, five professional investors from Logan Ventures, E&Venture Partners, K-Clavis Investment, Rising S Ventures, and Daedeok Venture Partners were invited as judges.

A total of seven teams, including external market experts, GIST faculty, and student (preliminary) entrepreneurs, presented various topics such as ▲development of stem cell therapeutics using reduced graphene oxide-alginate hydrogel technology ▲development of CBW quantum sensor modules for quantum LiDAR, a core function of autonomous driving ▲development of filters for hemodialysis and dialysis water purification devices.

The grand prize was awarded to student pre-entrepreneur Ho-yeon Lee (Department of Chemistry, GIST), who presented a multi-diagnostic sensor for prostate cancer usable on-site, selected by 73 mock crowdfunding participants. The excellence award went to Professor Byung-seung Ham of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at GIST, who presented the development of CBW quantum sensor modules for quantum LiDAR, a core function of autonomous driving. Lastly, the encouragement award was given to CEO Ju-young Hong of Sigorjabjong, who presented the topic of an AI dog clothing platform application.

The winning teams received prize money of 1.5 million KRW, 1 million KRW, and 500,000 KRW respectively, and the event concluded with various activities including a raffle for online participants.

Jo Byung-kwan, Director of the Startup Promotion Center, said, "We will spare no effort to support this forum to establish itself as a communication platform for startups by organically connecting technology startup CEOs with excellent capabilities in the region centered on GIST." He added, "In particular, we will focus on nurturing AI startups and discovering successful models to do our best to revitalize the regional economy."

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