Cultivating Innovation:

50 Years of Entrepreneurship in KSEA

From early technical advisories to startup accelerators, 

KSEA has led transformative entrepreneurial efforts in US and Korea

Contents

Signature Programs - UKC IES, STEP-UP

Quotes & Testimonials

“We should pull our expertise together in the spirit of entrepreneurship.”

“KSEA is best poised to cultivate technology-based entrepreneurship”

“Partnership and persistence are the seeds of startup success”

Interested in mentoring, investing, or launching a venture, please contact us.    -   KSEA, Small & Medium Enterprise Committee

Cultivating Entrepreneurship: From Foundation to Take-Off

Tilling (Early Foundation)

Seeding (1989-1990s)

Incubating (1998-2000s)

Taking-Off (2015–Present)

From 2015 onward, entrepreneurship in KSEA expanded rapidly. The Small and Medium Enterprise Committee (SMEC), affiliated professional societies like KITEE and TekOne, and startup programs such as UKC’s Innovation & Entrepreneurship Symposium (IES) and STEP-UP established strong platforms for mentoring, pitching, and collaboration.  KSEA entered a new era, actively fostering entrepreneurial minds among members  and startup ecosystems. 

History and Vision of Entrepreneurship in KSEA

Tilling the ground

 One of the missions that has continued in the history of KSEA for the last 50 years since its inception in 1972 was the cooperation through science and technology between the United States and Korea. Considering the level of science and technology in Korea in the 1970s and 80s, many KSEA members with unsparing patriotic hearts made significant contributions for Korea in various ways, which helped achieved the miracle of the Han River.

When speaking about the cooperation between US and Korea through science and technology, the Korea side partners of KSEA were mainly government research institutes and large companies.  Many KSEA members returned to Korea for positions in academia and industry, spent sabbatical leave in Korea, offered seminars and consulting. If all the contributions of KSEA members were detailed here, even whole book would lack the space. Thus, this article will focus on the organized entrepreneurial activities KSEA has undertaken for startups, small and medium businesses in  US and Korea.

Early days KSEA members actively contributed to the development of the economy in our motherland through a variety of activities. In the remarks of the first KSEA president Shoon Kyung Kim’s[1]  we get a glimpse of what the mindset of early members and the activities were like: collect science and technology-related books and magazines and send them to Korean research institutes; donation of scientific experimental equipment;  responding to the collaboration requests from Korea  by individual members, chapter and committee levels;  status and needs of research and technology institutions in Korea to be published via KSEA Letters. One noteworthy event was that in 1972, the Delaware Valley Chapter (DVC) (Chapter president, Young-il Mok) formed a technical advisory group to help Korea to ease the technological dependency from the United States and Japan and strived to contribute to the economic self-sufficiency of Korea. Several joint research projects were conducted with the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST). The group continued to help Korea by holding science and technology symposiums.

In 1975, 3rd President Young-bae Kim made a proposal[2] that is even applicable today. For example, he proposed to establish an information center in Korea so that the information of KSEA members could be shared more efficiently with institutions in Korea; to establish a research center mainly for the members of the KSEA to directly sign research contracts with Korean institutions. The proposal also included  forming a special committee for a field that is important in Korea. 

While the efforts to help development of science and technology in Korea continued, a proposal addressing “entrepreneurship” came out for the first time in 1977[3]. President Chong Hwa Pyun emphasized that KSEA should help small and medium-sized businesses in Korea especially because those small businesses in Korea were not able to carry out technical development on their own. Unfortunately, however, no follow-up activities ensued.

In 1986, an announcement in a KSEA Letter[4] (President Dong Han Kim) helped shown the status of technological development of small businesses in Korea, which featured 26 technological categories  and requested KSEA members to participate in urgently needed technical advice for small businesses in Korea. Some of these technical categories are plastic bottle, ceramic core, electronic scale, continuous casting of pipe, magnetic chucks textile machinery, automotive components, capacitors, etc. Seeing these technical needs, one may gauge the technical situation of small and medium-sized enterprise (SMEs) in Korea at that time.

[1] KSEA Letters Vol. 1, No. 1, January 1972

[2] KSEA Letters Vol.4, No. 2, May 1975

[3] KSEA Letters Vol. 5, No. 15, June 1977

[4] KSEA Letters Vol. 14, No. 1, August 1985

Seeding

Incubating

In the Seeding Phase, there were occasional events related to entrepreneurship, but most were limited and one-off events.  Since 1998, entrepreneurship event has been held continuously as a part of the annual technical conference. The first of such entrepreneurship symposium was established at the  Korea-US Technical Conference on Strategic Technologies in 1998[1] (President Ki-dong Lee), which is regarded as the first US-Korea Conference (UKC). During the first UKC in 1998,  an Entrepreneurship Session was organized by Jay H. Chung, CEO of Tyco Engineering Inc. 

The following year, in 1999, the title of UKC was changed to Science, Technology, Entrepreneurship, and Leadership, and for the first time, “Entrepreneurship” entered the UKC title.  Since then, KSEA has made efforts to improve both quantitatively and qualitatively the entrepreneurship activities. President H. Thomas Hahn shared his vision on entrepreneurship for KSEA[2]. “I propose we pull our expertise together in the spirit of entrepreneurship. We should open a dialogue between researchers and practitioners. We should explore together investment and business opportunities collectively. I challenge each chapter to develop entrepreneurship opportunity for its members. I am pleased to report that two chapters have already held successfully venture business forums: New England Chapter and Southern California Chapter. The fruits of these forums are yet to be seen. However, we are sowing the seeds. The headquarter is working on a plan to find consulting opportunities for our members. Opportunities for leadership and entrepreneurship development should be what distinguish the KSEA from other professional organizations. I invite every chapter to join in our effort to expand these opportunities for all our members. I salute chapter presidents for their leadership and dedication”.

In UKC 1999, the Entrepreneurship symposium and the Technology Based Venture Forum were held together. The Entrepreneurship symposium was held for two days and organized by Chong Do Lee (Leedco) and Peter McDermott (LG America) as Co-chairs. Most of 12 speakers were founders in the United States, sharing their experiences of starting a business. The symposium also became a platform to explore future collaboration among the participants. Meanwhile, the Technology-Based Venture Enterprises Forum (TVEF) was organized by Anthony Kim (Inno-Tech Associates) and Sora Cho (Hughes Communication) as  co-chairs. Divided into two sessions, the forum presented and discussed challenges to entrepreneurs and investees.

Anthony Kim pointed out the explosive venture activities taking place in the United States at that time and indicated the existence of substantial  interest in becoming a technology entrepreneur among many KSEA members. While pointing out that most of the speakers who attended this TVEF were non-KSEA member invitees, Anthony proposed, that KSEA made a multi-prong effort for members interested in entrepreneurship, making successful matching between promising entrepreneurs and the understanding capitalists across the US and Korea. Although TVEF forum was overlapped with other programs of UKC1999, it was  the most attended forum with about 30 people. Many attendees suggested that entrepreneurship forum should be held at a place in the heart of potential audiences such as Korean community center for easy access and parking as well as other considerations such as food and beverages. He further suggested KSEA to start to capitalize members’ vast expertise in technologies and skills and to hold a nationwide or international (mostly US-Korea) forum. He concluded that equal amount of efforts should be exerted to convince potential capitalists to participate in such an event.

The UKC 2000[3] (President Howard Ho Chung) continued entrepreneurial event with the same title, the US-Korea Conference on Science and Technology, Entrepreneurship and Leadership. Starting-up High-tech Venture Business workshop was organized by mostly the leaders who served in the UKC1999- Peter Cho, Yong Nak Lee, Anthony Kim, and Daniel Park. The event was short of implementing the various good proposals brought forth by Anthony Kim in the previous year.

In the year 2001[4], president Nak Ho Sung left  the term “Leadership” out from the UKC title and made it to US-Korea Conference on Science, Technology and Entrepreneurship, which is still in use today. The Entrepreneurship and Venture Business Forum were organized by Peter C. Cho and Hikyu Lee.  As in the previous year, participants shared venture experiences, financing, government funding sources, followed by Q&A and panel discussion. The former KAIST president Prof. Nam Pyo Suh' was noted in the participation list. 

After UKC2002 held in Korea, Entrepreneurship and Venture workshop resumed in 2003 (President Quiesup Kim). Again Peter C. Cho served the chair along with Chong Do Lee. Due to different emphases for UKCs in the next few years, entrepreneurship program was left dormant,  while the title is maintained.

UKC2009[5] (President Chueng-Ryong Ji) revived the entrepreneurship forum featuring several talks and a panel discussion organized by  Yung Bog Chae (Gyeonggi Bio-Center), Julius Rim, Prof. Jong Kyu Kim, and Jin Soo Kim to inspire entrepreneurship to young KSEA members.

In the following year, Jae Hoon Kim as the 39th president explored opportunities of technical consulting services to a small/medium business in Korea; subsequently, several funding proposals have been submitted to several Korea agencies such as KOFST and KIAT.

In UKC2012 (President Hosin Lee), US-Korea Industry forum was organized by Professors, Jongwook Woo and Jongdae Lee.  The forum invited 9 institutes from US including several small businesses in the hopes to connect these companies with large corporations and research institutions from Korea and US. Worth noting is the entrepreneurial event, Business Venture Challenge held at YGTLC (Young Generation Technical and Leadership Conference). The winner of $10,000 prize was RF Test Labs co-founded by three Ph.D candidates and a post-doctoral fellow at the NYU’s Center for Biomedical imaging[6].

In June 2013 (President Hyung Min Chung), Technology Entrepreneurship Seminar (TES) was launched as a two-day event at Silicon Valley. More than 120 engineers and entrepreneurs attended the event from US and some from Europe and Canada.   The participants are ranged from graduate students and young professionals who just started their career to seniors who is considering retirement.  The seminar topics of TES covered strategy of technology commercialization, business models, corporate funding and investment, government grants for small business, intellectual property, and business success stories.

In UKC2013 (President Myung Jong Lee), the entrepreneurship track was introduced to help many Korea industries in their search for young talents, along with the project evaluation and collaboration, which was organized by Jung Joo Hwang and Jong Dae Lee.  In seeking entrepreneurial collaboration with Korea, KSEA entered into MOU with KOVA (Korea Venture Association).  To promote startup activities, Business Venture Challenge event was held within entrepreneurship track and offered $10,000 award for the winning team. During the year 2013, a HQ level Industry and Entrepreneurship director position is created for the first time, and Bo Ryu is appointed for the position. Later in 2014, Bo Ryu founded the TeKOne as a KSEA Affiliated Professional Societies with the strong support of KSEA HQ.

In 2014 (President Youngsoo Richard Kim), Korea Innovation Center, Washington DC (KIC-DC) was created by Korea Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning as a global post for Korea’s creative economy policies. The center aimed to help Korean technology startups engage with rich innovation ecosystem of the US, and offered the KIC start I-Corps, introducing NSF-driven innovation curriculum to Korean S&T universities and national laboratories. However, lack of full collaboration with KSEA, the impact of this center was very limited.

[1] KSEA Letters Vol. 27, No. 2, December 1988

[2] KSEA Letters Vol. 28, No. 3, March 2000

[3] KSEA Letters Vol. 29, No. 1, December 2000

[4] KSEA Letters Vol. 30, No. 1, December 2001

[5] KSEA Letters Vol. 38, No. 1, December 2009

[6] KSEA Letters Vol. 40, No. 4, June 2012

Taking-Off

In universities in the United States and in every country on the planet, entrepreneurship became the norm. Indeed, most universities have dedicated offices like “technology transfer office”, “commercialization office”  to help students and faculty with entrepreneurial minds cultivate their ideas into startups.   A variety of events such as team building, seminar, pitch competition, incubating center, legal help, etc. are taking place throughout the year. Aware of this environmental trend of the world,  KSEA began emphasizing entrepreneurship and the industries for the healthy growth of KSEA membership and to ultimately benefit her members. In particular, KSEA with her vast expertise’s in all engineering and science disciplines, is best poised to be the foundation of cultivating technology-based entrepreneurship.

After tilling, seeding and incubating period, the entrepreneurship in KSEA began to take-off around the year 2015 by a concerted efforts of former presidents and enthusiastic members with entrepreneurial minds.  Introduced below are three aspects of current thrust: standing committee (SMEC), APS (KITEE and TekOne), and KSEA startup task force, and Local Activities.

A standing committee on entrepreneurship: SMEC

As a separate article on the SMEC committee, entitled “ The Spirit of KSEA Small and Medium Enterprise Committee,” is contributed by Yong Nak Lee and H. Thomas Hahn, detailing SMEC; thus, only a brief introduction is presented here. 

During the year 2015, an important milestone was set with respect to entrepreneurship in KSEA. At the request of Jae Hoon Yu (45th President), an ad hoc Small and Medium Business (SMB) committee is formed by a group of members led by Yong Nak Lee (10th President), H. Thomas Hahn (28th President) and Nak Ho Sung (30th President),  the objective of which was to examine the roles that KSEA could and should play with its collective scientific and technological assets to further the economic development of both the US and Korea. The ad hoc committee held SMB workshops during UKC2016 and UKC2017. The committee members also visited Korea in 2017 to seek collaboration with Korean SMBA (Small and Medium Business Administration).

In 2018, a resolution was ratified at the 46th Mid-term council to establish the standing committee Small/Medium Enterprise Committee (SMEC) and H. Thomas Hahn was elected to the first chair.  The primary focus of the committee has been to help small companies with technical and other business needs.  Since September 2020, Myung Jong Lee (42nd President) has been serving the SMEC chair and planned to expand the role of SMEC to include startup activities and promote Entrepreneurship among KSEA members through a seminar series on essential element of startups and small businesses.  Also, strategic partnership is sought with KSEA APSs relevant for the mission of SMEC. 

SMEC activities are well summarized in the committee’s website (https://ksea-smec.org). One of the most important activities of SMEC is UKC IES (Innovation and Entrepreneurship Symposium).  H. Thomas Hahn assumed the Chair of both in UKC 2019 and UKC2020 in collaboration with many capable and dedicated leadership in KSEA/SMEC and APS KITEE (Korean-American Innovative Technology Engineers and Entrepreneurs) and invited entrepreneurs.

STEP-UP (Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Partners’ Upscale Program)

STEP-UP program[1] is indeed a meaningful follow-up program after UKC IES. The main objectives of the event were to 1) boost possibility of success of innovative ventures of KSEA scholars, researchers, and young generations in biotech and advanced engineering, 2) establish a platform for sharing strategies and ideas to accelerate the growth with risk mitigation for small and medium-sized venture companies, 3) build a new ecosystem of Korean-American ventures in biotech and advanced engineering,  and 4) provide Korean startups and SMEs in biotech and advanced engineering with the opportunity to set up a partnership with Korean-American scholars, scientists, engineers, professional managers, investors, lawyers, and marketers in the fields.

The inaugural STEP-UP 2020 was held September 21-24, 2020, as an online/in-person (Baltimore, MD) hybrid event. It attracted pleasantly surprised number of registrations at 230, out of which 174 through KSEA registration, while the rest 56 were from Korea through INNOPOLIS. The breakdown of attendees is shown below.

The program covered almost all areas required for startup in depth.  The keynote speech was offered by Professor Kwang-Soo Kim at Harvard University, followed by several sessions addressing academic entrepreneurship, US market, FDA regulatory strategy, IP and legal, fund raising, and pitch competition.

The organizing committee was led by Kyeong Ho Yang (Chair, KITEE president) with co-chairs Deok-Ho Kim, Tae Heum Jeong, IL Minn, Nayoung Lee Louie, Luke Oh, advisor Jun-Seok Oh, together with five KSEA leadership (Changmo Kim, Jeong Kuen Song, Claire Hur, Eunyoung Kim, Seung-Eon Roh).

The overall feedback for the event was very encouraging. The analysis of participants showed that many KSEA members in the biotech and healthcare field are very interested in starting their own ventures and/or working with startups as strategic partners. To encourage and support them to develop their innovative ideas to next level, the STEP-UP committee provided them with the opportunity to network with high-profile entrepreneurs and innovators, to listen to the stories of those who have successfully exited their companies, and to learn about best practices of startups, from protecting intellectual property to secure funding from venture capitalists and government agencies. 

The STEP-UP 2021 will be held in the June 13-16, 2021, in LA with the theme, “ Starting & Scaling up Data, Network, and AI (D.N.A) Ventures”. As with the STEP-UP 2020,  KOFST and INNOPOLIS are main sponsors (연구개발특구진흥재단), together with several new sponsors. It is noted here that these sponsors are not traditional KSEA sponsors such as large size companies but news ones only for the entrepreneurship activities.

STEP-UP 2021 will also be held via hybrid event (online/in-person) with the similar contents as STEP-UP2020. Again, Kyeong Ho Yang assumed the chair, together with co-chairs Deok-Ho Kim, Tae Heum Jeong, IL Minn, Nayoung Lee Louie, and Luke Oh, advisor Jun-Seok Oh, KSEA leadership (Changmo Kim, Jeong Kuen Song, Claire Hur, Eunyoung Kim, Seung-Eon Roh).  

It is noteworthy that leadership for KSEA’s main entrepreneurship activities, the UKC-IES 2020 & 2021 and STEP-UP 2020 &2021, largely remains unchanged, which is very desirable as the entrepreneurship activities require  reliability and consistency at much higher level than other events. Also, the leadership composition, e.g., venture capitalist, startup CEO, academic entrepreneurs,  clearly shows the departure from traditional academic leadership. Surely, KSEA is being called out to the entrepreneurship field.

[1] KSEA Letters Vol. 49, No. 1 March 2021

KSEA’s Profit Subsidiary - SciTech Startup Partners, Inc.

Two APSs for entrepreneurship were created back-to-back, one in the west coast and the other in the east coast.

KITEE (Korean-American Innovative Engineers and Entrepreneurs)

Another KSEA APS for entrepreneurship was established in 2015 by Kyeong-Ho Yang (founder, president from 2020), Myung Jong Lee (first president, 2015-2020) and Dong Sung Suk (first chairman of the board). KITEE aimed at becoming the center of the startup ecosystem for Korean Americans in the greater NY metropolitan area and the east coast. The NY-NJ hub has been the fastest-growing technology startup ecosystem in the US only after the Silicon Valley over the last 10 years. The KITEE’s business ecosystem featured essential entrepreneurial components to startups: human capital in innovative IT, BT, FT and other technologies, finance, business service, education/consulting, startup incubation and collaboration with Korea. The core mission is to help technologists transform themselves to technology entrepreneurs by offering professional services in technical, marketing, business development, legal, and financial areas. Current KITEE members are comprised of engineers and researchers in various technical areas, entrepreneurs, developers, designers, investors, financial and legal service experts, and students. KITEE is meeting monthly with the supports from LG, Samsung, and SK, and HRCap, carrying out the series of initiatives toward creating startups with the following thrusts:

·      Provide opportunities to meet and exchanges ideas and supports for transformation of ideas of business,

·      Develop business opportunities in various technical disciplines and their convergence,

·      Promote collaboration of US-Korea Small and Medium-sized Businesses (SMB), and

·      Connect young entrepreneurs and seasoned innovators and business mentors.

For US-Korea collaboration, teaming up with Korea Small & medium Business Corporation (SBC), KITEE has provided technical and marketing mentoring services to selected Korean startups. Owing to the great success of its first program launched in November 2016, SBC decided to run the program twice a year. The second programs were completed in May 2017 and November 2017, respectively. The feedback from both KITEE mentors and the mentees was very encouraging. KITEE is very proud of its experienced, responsible and well-prepared mentors who made the program a great success. The mentoring program continued in a variety of formats in the collaboration with KOSME (Korea SMEs and Startups Agency, formerly SBC)

In 2017, under the theme of “Igniting Entrepreneurship”, KITEE continued to provide professional services and quality seminars by inviting outstanding entrepreneurs, engineers, and investors. To further promote entrepreneurship of KITEE members and to help members build promising startups, KITEE held its first Idea Pitch Competition on May 31, 2017, where nine groups of KITEE members presented their ideas to win the competition and the continuous support from KITEE. Idea Pitch Competition continued annually, and its 4th event was held October 5, 2020. 1st Prize is offered by KOSEN (Overseas Korean Scientists and Engineers Network).  The Idea Pitch Competition demonstrated the fruits of members’ collaborative activities. It is encouraging to see that some of the awardees in KITEE’s IPC have participated in the UKC Startup Pitch Competition and made into finalists.

KITEE is open to anyone in the US and Korea who is interested in the entrepreneurship (contact: info@kitee.org).

TekOne

In 2014, the first APS, TeKOne was founded by Bo Ryu (HQ Entrepreneurship Director during 42nd administration). The objective of TekOne is to promote technology startup activities for Korean American scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs in partnership with KSEA. The first annual event was held in May 2014 in LA and attended by 116 people. The event consisted of invited CEO talks, Investor panels, and start-up pitch competition. TekOne held the second annual event in Boston and the third one in LA (TeKOne West Demoday 2016). In the Demoday 2016, a total of fifteen starts from Korea and US were there, along with investors, IP experts, and global entrepreneurship supporters to further expand the reach and strength of Korean and Korean American technology startup community. It was encouraging news that some of TekOne members got their seed funding from a Korean VC after attending TekOne event. A panel composed of investors and entrepreneurs strongly called for more frequent meetings to draw more attention from Korean Americans and build better startup eco-system for next generation.  TekOne is open to any who are interested in entrepreneurship. Contact president@episci.com.

Burgeoning Entrepreneurship Activities

Along with the emphasis on entrepreneurship by the KSEA leadership,  unprecedented entrepreneurship activities have been carried out at HQ level as well as local chapter level and continuing. Some of them are introduced here to display the fact that the entrepreneurship in KSEA is indeed  taking off from the ground.

·      2017 Industry Professional and Entrepreneurship Conference (iPEC)

This iPEC Conference (chair, Jong Y. Park, Moffitt center, Univ.of South Florida)  May 20-21, 2017, was to provide useful, practical, and professional information for entrepreneurs who have plans to, or have recently launched a startup company, also networking opportunities with other entrepreneurs and mentors, and other information. The workshop was held in LA, California and brought in  58 participants. The iPEC consisted of 8 sessions over two days and offered insightful talks on experiences of failure and success of founders, business model, finances, intellectual properties, group discussions, government funding, and a pitch session for three startups, and inspiring talk and concluding remarks by 45th President Jae Hoon Yu.  This workshop has all the positive elements of any entrepreneurship program but in smaller scale, later fully blown at UKC IES.

·      Silicon Valley Hi-TECH Seminar Series and Startup Pitch

KSEA Silicon Valley Chapter (Chapter president Steve Sung Won Moon) hosted its Hi-Tech Seminar Series V & Startup Pitch, December 16, 2019, at Samsung America in San Jose, CA. Noteworthy is the participation of prominent Chairman Chong Moon Lee and several startup CEOs. Many attendees gave elevator speeches on what “true success” means to them. Mr. Chong Moon Lee gave the keynote speech on how to Korean culture, history, and background affects us in the modern  world and businesses. Two startups participated in the pitch (Speaking in AI, Fighting Against Cancer) and several companies introduced their business ideas.

Epilog

For the past 50 years, KSEA has been mainly led by academia, but for the next 50 years KSEA will expand to members who have interests in industry and entrepreneurship.  There may be many factors that can explain the explosive global interests in entrepreneurship. The booming of entrepreneurship could be attributed to the global trends from vertical industrial environment toward horizontal enterprises; that is, the tendency of increasing societal entropy as human history evolves.  In recent years, KSEA and its strategic partners including APSs, and chapters have been putting a lot of effort into entrepreneurship via such platform as UKC IES and STEPUP.  Also, the favorable atmosphere of the US-Korea collaboration through entrepreneurship offers a new opportunity for the healthy growth for KSEA. In conclusion, I hope such entrepreneurial efforts will ultimately help all the constituents of KSEA in US and Korea.