Korea University Led Start-up Companies Recognized For Innovation And Technological Prowess Internationally
Korea University will receive the Innovation Award at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2023, an international consumer electronics exhibition to be held in Las Vegas in January 2023.
CES is the world’s largest electronics and IT exhibition hosted by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), and the ‘CES Innovation Award’ is an award given by the CTA to innovative technologies and products that are world leading, particularly considering aspects such as technology, design, and originality. This is regarded as the highest honor of the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES).
All Innovation Award winning products can use the CES Innovation Award logo for marketing purposes and benefit from product exposure on the CES website.
A total of three teams from Korea University will receive the Innovation Award, ZERC (Zero Energy Radiative Cooling), a faculty-startup founded by Professor Heon Lee of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, QSIM+ established by Professor Kwang-seok Kim of the Research Institute for Information & Communication Technology, and Smartooth Korea founded by CEO Ho-Jung Son (Department of Health Science ’12).
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ZERC (Professor Heon Lee) introduced the radiant cooling composite sheet, a next-generation cooling technology that can release heat without consuming energy. The zero-energy radiation cooling technology utilizes the optical properties of the material for its cooling ability, enabling cooling without power consumption. Existing radiant cooling technology has limited real-life applications since its structure is of limited use and its manufacturing process is expensive and time-consuming. The new technology can form varied structures at a lower manufacturing cost.
ZERC proposed a radiation cooling sheet comprised of a new material made by combining ceramic particles and a polymeric material binder, allowing it to be manufactured into sheets of varied and complex structure and solving existing limitations such that it can be manufactured at low cost. As a result, this eco-friendly technology can be used in wide-ranging real-life applications to enable low-cost cooling and reduce fossil fuel consumption.
QSIM+ (Professor Kwang-Seok Noh) introduced a new simulator for quantum communication in the era of quantum information technology. In existing quantum communication research, although verification of developmental technology, particularly its performance, is essential, the available verification process has been costly and time-consuming, so verification has been limited. For this reason, a lot of trial and error has been involved in setting up experiments.
QSIM+ enabled fast and accurate quantum communication verification by developing a S/W simulator dedicated to quantum communication. Quantum communication technology that has been verified through reliable QSIM+ technology can be used in personal mobile products for which security is important, such as self-driving cars. Since the simulator of QSIM+ continuously learns using the external environment as an input value, the quantum cryptography communication parameters of this simulator gradually increase in accuracy, and, in turn, the resulting verification becomes increasingly accurate.
Smartooth Korea introduced a next-generation dental health monitoring technology that can be used to regularly monitor the condition of teeth and the presence of cavities at home. Smartooth Korea’s technology uses laser fluorescence measurement technology (via an optical sensor) to detect tooth decay and audibly inform the user, greatly simplifying tooth care. In addition, it is in the form of a toothbrush so easy to use, and the results are recorded in a mobile app for easy management.
Having also participated in 2022, Korea University will have participated in CES for two consecutive years.
Korea University held the KU Tech Fair for CES 2023 in August to discover excellent technologies and ideas from professors and students, including technology possessed by Korea University, and from the presentations were able to derive research results. The excellent teams selected through the KU Tech Fair were supported to participate in CES 2023, providing an opportunity to advance into the global market.
A total of 7 teams were selected through the KU Tech Fair. Medi-IoT Inc. was selected as the Grand Prize winner and Huespine and Connexioh Inc. as Top Prize winners. The Excellence Award went to 4 teams: ZERC, Blue Labs, Einocle, and QSIM+ Inc.
The KU Tech Fair not only provides full support for CES 2023 participation fees, but select participants can also receive investment support of up to KRW 200 million from the startup incubator company, Korea Investment Accelerator. The KU Tech Fair determines this through IR pitching. ZERC, Blue Labs, and QSIM+ were selected as investment recipients.
Suk-Joo Choh, President of the Research and Business Foundation of Korea University, said, “I am very proud that the excellent technologies of Korea University start-ups have been internationally recognized for their innovation and technology at CES 2023. We will continue to provide support for faculty and student start-ups so that campus start-ups can blossom into companies that flourish in the world.”
The Korea University Research and Business Foundation shifts the center of gravity from technology commercialization centered on technology transfer to technology commercialization through shared growth with start-ups. It is building various growth support programs for start-ups using the BRIDGE+ business program.