Throughout November 2018, the ‘Future Mobility Business Idea Competition’ was held by Hanyang University (HYU) Start-up Support Foundation and Hyundai NGV Co, Ltd. The competition was subdivided into three rounds.

From November 10 to 11, the participants were organized into teams and ran a hackathon together for consequent two days without sleeping. After the hackathon, those who passed the first phase executed their projects. The on-site Hyundai researchers evaluated the projects to see if the ideas were conceptualizable, for two weeks.  Along with researchers from Hyundai, professors from HYU, and venture capitalists evaulated the participants as well. Lastly, on November 24, the winners were sorted out from the finalists.

According to Jang Sang-gil, a Deputy General Manager of the Start-up Support Foundation, this competition was beneficial not only to the students, but also to the corporation hosting this event. “Participants were able to have a valuable experience through communicating with the on-site researchers and experts who actually work in that particular field and could think about their future more specifically. Plus, the corporation itself can fuse its vision with new and fresh ideas from the students,” he said. The Hyundai NGV is planning to research about the participants’ ideas to apply them to their actual upcoming projects.

Chances to participate was expanded from Engineering majors to any undergraduate students regardless of their majors, and to anyone who is interested in the hackathon and the idea conceptualizing processes this year. Starting from next year, this competition will expand its participants to universities located in Seoul and its neighborhood.  The organizers anticipate that the students’ brilliant and flexible ideas will be able to help students not only to plan their own careers, but also to help this even set a firm stepping stone for upcoming start-up events at HYU.