Yonsei School of Business

 The academic conferences held in conjunction with the Yonsei School of Business’ centennial celebration, such as hosting an international symposium on “K-Management” and preparing for the publication of books on the topic created an opportunity to review the status of Yonsei Business School and look back on the school’s past hundred years and its contribution to Korea’s economic development. At the same time, Yonsei recognized the centennial was also a good time to take stock and reorganize the direction of YSB’s education for the next hundred years and to cultivate a new spirit in business education. “Cultivating Start-ups and Entrepreneurship” and “Cultivating Ethical Leadership” are the new spirits of Yonsei Business School.

The global economy is moved by new enterprises that change the world through innovative ideas, and the importance of this trend is expected to expand in the future. It is already recognized that the younger generation’s enterprises can drive Korea’s Creative Economy. Previously the Engineering College has been at the forefront of “Start-ups and Entrepreneurship,” but many businesses have faltered when innovation was not accompanied by business knowledge. Hence, cultivating “Start-ups and Entrepreneurship” in the field of business education cannot be delayed any longer.

Introduction of innovative education cultivating Start-ups and Entrepreneurship

To address this perceived gap in business education, YSB introduced an innovative education program cultivating “Start-ups and Entrepreneurship,” with 2015 as the first year of its introduction. To provide experience in the basics of start-ups to freshmen at YSB and seed them with the spirit of start-ups and entrepreneurship, YSB created “Start-ups 101: Toward the Korean Bill Gates (Start-ups 101),” with Professor Seongmoon Kim, associate dean of YSB, as the lecturer. Moreover, “Start-ups Consulting: uCAN (“uCAN”) was developed for third- and fourth-year YSB students to provide them experience in youth start-ups and work on a project to solve business issues faced by youth-founded enterprises (Lecturer: Professor Seongmoon Kim, associate dean). “Start-ups 101” and “uCAN” are both credit courses introduced in the 2015 Fall Semester. Through the two courses students can participate in the incremental stages of start-ups from the initial stage to business item development and sales. The “uCAN” course was especially designed to provide a forum for sharing business knowledge by enabling students to naturally cultivate entrepreneurship by providing management consulting to youth-founded enterprises

Educating cultivation of Ethical Leadership and Social Responsibility

Meanwhile, the “Foreign Business School Dean’s Roundtable” held as part of YSB’s 100^th anniversary celebration in early November raised the issue of business education. The consensus of the deans of the foreign business schools aligned with YSB’s core values, verifying the direction and value of our education system. Deans of foreign business schools emphasized the importance of ethical leadership, which refers to ethical behavior in future business fields. YSB has begun a new course, “Social Contribution Consulting:uSee (“uSEE”)” for third- and fourth-year students (Lecturer: Soonkyoo Choe, associate dean of planning) to emphasize this value. uSEE is a management-consulting project of aiding self-sufficient businesses in the local economy. Through this course, students will apply their business knowledge to self-sufficient business management and consider their social responsibility in looking at their ideas being implemented in the business field.

The “Start-ups 101” course is designed to foster YSB students to dream about “foundation” and develop them into talents who can change the world. uCAN and uSEE are key programs to cultivate Yonsei Business School’s core values (Globalism, Creativity, Ethics) and will be expanded into a curriculum incorporating industry-university cooperation in knowledge-sharing, problem-solving, and field study to realize YSB’s core values together with uGET that embodies globalism.

Selected as managing institution for SK Youth Rise Start-ups Program

Yonsei School of Business was selected in November as the managing institution of a SK Youth Rise Start-ups Program. The selection came after submission of a joint proposal with the Yonsei Enterprise Support Foundation. Yonsei will receive 600 million Korean won for two years as fees for operating the program, including curriculum development and support of the start-ups club and for personnel and operating expenses. The program supports start-ups education at universities with the aim of changing youths’ perception of founding businesses. Its objective is to encourage university students to establish enterprises and provide opportunities for overseas expansion through start-ups lectures, education, and incubating programs. Six professors from the Engineering College and nine professors from YSB are participating in the project. The nine YSB participants are Donghoon Kim, Seongmoon Kim, Jinwoo Kim, Hyunhan Shin, Hoyoung Lee, Subin Im, Soonkyoo Choe, Jeonghye Choi and Jungmi Yang.