Press

Seoul – (Newswire) February 28, 2017 – Underdogs, a social innovation startup education institution and Seoul-designated preliminary social enterprise (CEO Kim Jung-heon), announced the launch of 'Social Innovation Trip,' a participatory social enterprise exploration program targeting Asian youth. The program consisted of visits to domestic social enterprises and social ventures, experiences with product and service provision processes, interviews with social enterprise founders, and an innovation idea sharing session. The first program ran for 2 nights and 3 days from January 16-18, with 21 students and staff members from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology participating. Participants first visited 'Mindalpaengi Housing Cooperative,' which addresses youth housing issues at Seoul Innovation Park, a social innovation platform operated by the Seoul Metropolitan Government, and experienced upcycled fashion brand 'PROUND' and bracelet-making using discarded earphones. They then visited 'Seongsu Social Venture Valley' in Seongdong-gu, home to over 30 social ventures, where they directly interviewed founders of 'Marimonde,' a lifestyle brand for restoring human dignity, and 'Root Impact,' which discovers and supports changemakers. Over the three-day program, they visited a total of 14 social enterprises, including 'iCube Labs,' which creates public waste bins using IoT technology. On the final day's innovation idea sharing session, participants presented solutions applying social innovation ideas gained during the exploration to problems identified at their university in Hong Kong. Mentors Cho Sang-rae, Executive Director of Underdogs, and Kim So-mi, Senior Program Manager of the Global Green Growth Institute, provided feedback. Athena Wung, a first-year participant (18), stated: 'This was an opportunity to experience and deeply understand Korea's social economy ecosystem. Through direct exchanges with Korean social enterprise founders, I was motivated to become a social innovator solving social problems in Hong Kong.' Cho Sang-rae, Executive Director of Underdogs, said: 'The goal of Social Innovation Trip is to allow youth across Asia dreaming of social innovation to vividly experience Korea's social economy ecosystem and business models. We want to help them become innovators solving their countries' social problems by benchmarking Korean cases.' Underdogs is Korea's only social innovation startup education institution dedicated to discovering and nurturing social innovators. Over the past three years, it has trained 651 innovators and launched 85 startup teams. Beginning with this program, Underdogs plans to expand the scope of startup education and Social Innovation Trip to cover all of Asia, including South Korea.