"I was able to learn about the strengths of Finland’s powerful global entrepreneurialism and entrepreneurial ecosystem“

Ji Myung-jin (department of photography, 3rd year student), who is studying at Kyungil University, was selected as a participant in "Startup Garden 2018", a program for exchanging entrepreneurial ecosystems between Korea and Finland. She experienced Finland’s entrepreneurial ecosystem during summer vacation. Kyungil University was selected for this exchange program for the two consecutive years following Lee Chang-hoon’s (Department of Business Administration, 4 years) last year.

Finland is famous for entrepreneurial education. Some of the best universities in the world come to Finland to learn from their entrepreneurial education which is used as a benchmark. In educational institutions, students are not only waiting for employment, but they have created entrepreneurial skills to create employment and actively provide entrepreneurship education to others so that they become economically active people. In this process, students started to set up their own companies and entrepreneurial education was strengthened throughout the education field.
The prospective founder, Ji Jin-jin, has interacted with prospective founders from various countries. She also learned and experienced the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Finland.

She visited the Finnish startups such as Nokia and Supercell and attended local programs such as lectures, workshops and global networking. The key topic of most of the lectures she attended was "Make Behavior Simpler to Do". She said the most memorable part of the program was conducting surveys and interviews directly with Finnish people by designing entrepreneurial items that could be applied in Finland. She presented a new tile construction method and tile interior idea using a magnet tile in a hot-rolled steel frame, and received a great response in terms of ease of interior originality expansion and change.

"It was hard for me to study in other countries, but I was able to experience the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Finland and to shape and develop my ideas with college students around the world." This experience helped me prepare for my start-up, "she said. Actually she is a department of photography, but she is interested in establishing her own interior company, so she is a member of the club called 'Opened Neo' which is an interior start-up in the school. Her dreams is to be the founder of an interior company in the near future.

Meanwhile, 'Startup Garden 2018' is hosted by Small and Medium Businesses and organized by the Korea Youth Entrepreneurship Foundation and Alto University in Finland. This program is an annual international exchange program aimed at providing opportunities for global networking through advanced education courses in Finland. Participants will also experience the local entrepreneurial ecosystem, an expansion of the entrepreneurial mindset, mutual exchange with preliminary founders, and start-ups.