POSTECH Student Entrepreneurship Team Clinches Grand Prize at LAB Start-up Festival 2024
At the LAB Start-up Festival 2024 held at Korea University’s SK Future Hall on January 31, a team of students from Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) won the grand prize in the exhibition category.
A group of students from POSTECH’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, known as the Team Metacloud and comprised of PhD candidates Gyeongtae Kim, Hongyoon Kim, Joohoon Kim, and Sebin Chung (advisor: Professor Junsuk Rho from the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Department of Chemical Engineering), clinched the top spot in the exhibition category. Their winning presentation featured a metasurface-based miniaturized depth perception camera using nanopattern mass production technology. Metasurfaces, recognized for their association with invisibility cloak materials, are artificially created substances with the ability to manipulate light freely. They can significantly reduce the thickness of traditional lenses to one-10,000th of their usual thickness, offering potential applications in various fields such as virtual and augmented reality devices and LiDAR sensors.
In recognition of their achievement, Team Metacloud was honored with the Minister of Science and ICT Award and a cash prize of 5 million won (USD 4,000). Gyeongtae Kim, the team leader, expressed their perspective on the win, stating, “Through this competition, we have validated the feasibility of establishing a laboratory-based business and explored business ideas centered around metasurfaces.” He added, “Building on this success, we are gearing up for a comprehensive startup initiative.”
Jeong-Soo Lee, Vice President of Industry-Academic Affairs, remarked, “We will make ongoing efforts to foster a vibrant culture of laboratory entrepreneurship at the POSTECH.” He continued, “I’d like to encourage potential startup teams to actively explore the opportunities provided by the university-level startup incubation system.”
The event, hosted by the Ministry of Science and ICT and organized by the Commercializations Promotion Agency for R&D Outcomes and the Korea Entrepreneurship Foundation, acknowledges and rewards teams that have taken on the challenge of launching a business through the laboratory startup support project over the course of one year, achieving significant outcomes. This year, a total of 165 startup teams from over 40 universities in Korea actively participated in the event.