CEO Choi Jong-wook of MarkAny (left in the photo) and President Park Hyung-joo of Ajou University are posing for a commemorative photo at the MarkAny headquarters in Jung-gu, Seoul, on September 30.
[Asia Economy Reporter Han Jinju] Ajou University announced on the 12th that Choi Jong-wook, CEO of MarkAny, a mid-sized company in the information security field and an alumnus of Ajou University’s Department of Industrial Management Engineering (Class of ’78), donated 500 million KRW to support the university’s research development.
Based on this fund, the university plans to award up to 50 million KRW as a prize to full-time faculty members affiliated with Ajou University who publish papers as first authors in prestigious academic journals such as Nature or Science. In honor of the challenging spirit of Kim Woo-joong, founder of Daewoo Group, the donor’s intention was reflected in naming this award the ‘Kim Woo-joong Ajou Academic Award.’
Choi Jong-wook, CEO of MarkAny, said, “The teaching I received during my time at Ajou University, ‘Your homeland is your stepping stone, the world is your stage,’ enabled me to continuously challenge myself and lead my company through persistent effort.” He added, “I decided to donate to my alma mater with the hope that the excellent technologies possessed by the university will be further commercialized and contribute to our companies and society.”
CEO Choi entered Ajou University’s Department of Industrial Management Engineering (now Industrial Engineering) in 1978 and earned a Ph.D. in Management Information Systems from the University of Southern California (USC) in 1988. After serving as a research director at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), he began teaching as a professor in the Department of Software at Sangmyung University in 1991. While working as a professor, he started a university venture with his lab students and founded MarkAny in 1999.
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