[(From left) Professor Lee Geun-min of Daegu University, CEO Shim Jae-shin of Todoworks, Former Commissioner Joo Young-seop of the Small and Medium Business Administration, Former Director Shin Kyung-ho of the Science and Technology Job Promotion Agency, Partner Yoon Doo-won of K-Ground Ventures / Photo by Donggurumi Foundation]
The Donggurami Foundation has appointed 24 judges for the 2022 O-Prize: Good Mobility competition.
The judging panel includes 12 experts such as Professor Lee Geun-min from the Department of Rehabilitation Engineering at Daegu University, a leader in rehabilitation engineering in the ‘Disability + Mobility’ category; CEO Shim Jae-shin of TodoWorks, a startup that produces the world’s lightest 4.5kg electric kit for manual wheelchairs; former Small and Medium Business Administration Commissioner Joo Young-seop; former President of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology and Job Promotion Shin Kyung-ho, among others, totaling 24 experts across various fields.
Additionally, Yoon Doo-won, partner at K-Ground Ventures, was appointed as a workshop mentor to fully support one-stop mentoring from solution development to startup foundation for applicants. K-Ground Ventures is a science and technology commercialization specialized VC (venture capital) that leads advanced technology trends such as mobility and environment, and is a co-operator of scale-up TIPS and post-TIPS programs that discover and invest in technologies early.
Submitted proposals are pre-screened for similarity, duplication, and noise (compliance with proposal format). The selected finalists (10 teams) then participate in idea and solution coaching workshops and submit final proposals for the Demo Day competition. The final judging at Demo Day evaluates the teams based on the impact, innovation, urgency, and feasibility of their ideas to determine the winners.
Chairman Kwon Chi-jung of the Donggurami Foundation stated, “It is most important to review applicants’ solutions and develop them through investment and commercialization stages.” He added, “The Donggurami Foundation will not spare any support to help applicants develop practical solutions to social problems by reinforcing coaching workshops with not only theme-related experts but also veteran VCs and ACs (accelerators) as mentors.”
O-Prize is an open innovation platform launched in 2018 to publicly solicit ideas that solve social problems and support the process of implementing solutions. This year, the designated theme is ‘Disability + Mobility,’ focusing on mobility ideas that improve convenience for mobility-impaired individuals such as the disabled and elderly. A ‘free theme’ category is also open for ideas addressing any social issue.
In this competition, the grand prize winner (1 team) will receive up to 50 million KRW, the excellence award (1 team) up to 10 million KRW, and the merit award (3 teams) up to 3 million KRW each. Additionally, the 10 finalists will receive 2 million KRW each as idea development support funds.
The competition, open for applications until the 30th of this month, welcomes anyone with ideas and solutions to social problems to participate, with applications available through the official website.
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