KAIST Startup 'Unitech3DP' Wins Ministerial Award at Ministry of Science and ICT Startup Competition

[Asia Economy (Daejeon) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] KAIST announced on the 7th that its student startup Unitech3DP received the Minister's Award (Grand Prize) at the ‘X-IST Startup Competition’ sponsored by the Ministry of Science and ICT.

After the X-IST competition awards ceremony, Sangrae Kim (second from the left in the front row), CEO of Unitec 3DP, and others are taking a commemorative photo. Photo by KAIST

The X-IST Startup Competition is an annual event where promising startups from Korea’s four major science and technology institutes?KAIST, UNIST, DGIST, and GIST?gather in one place.

At KAIST, Unitech3DP and Bookend participated in the competition last October. Among them, the Unitech3DP team showcased a new method of metal 3D printing technology and was honored with the Minister of Science and ICT Award and a prize of 5 million KRW.

The Unitech3DP team consists of CEO Kim Sang-rae, a doctoral student in Professor Yoon Yong-jin’s Mechanical Engineering lab at KAIST, and CTO Alberto Andreu.

The team focused on why existing metal 3D printers are not widely used across various industries during the competition.

They concentrated on overcoming the limitation of conventional metal 3D printing, which relies on expensive lasers and optical systems, resulting in high initial costs that restrict its use to specialized fields such as aerospace and medical sectors.

As a result, Unitech3DP succeeded in developing a new metal 3D printing technology that drastically reduces initial costs and changes the existing usage environment. The key to their technological success was replacing the costly laser, which costs tens of millions of KRW, with a dual heating chamber.

Thanks to this, Unitech3DP’s metal 3D printing technology can use metal raw materials instead of metal powder used in conventional metal 3D printers, achieving hardware innovation and material diversity. It is evaluated to have potential applications in research and development, design, and the general metal processing market.

Unitech3DP CEO Kim Sang-rae said, "I want to contribute to popularizing metal 3D printing," and added, "Unitech3DP will continue KAIST’s vision not only domestically but also overseas" as his acceptance remarks.