'Stroke alarm cap' gets Samsung award

Lim Se-hoon, second from right, an employee at Samsung Electronics, poses with team members, Monday, after the team won the grand prize at this year’s Samsung Creative Awards for devising a prototype “Stroke Alarm Cap.” / Courtesy of Samsung Electronics

By Kim Yoo-chul

A team of five employees at Samsung Electronics won the grand prize at the Samsung Creative Awards held by the company Monday for working to develop a “stroke alarm cap.”

“We hope our achievement, though this is a prototype, will help Samsung develop advanced technologies," Lim Se-hoon, a representative of the team told The Korea Times.

The Samsung Creative Awards were instituted to encourage employees to submit new business ideas and help them develop creative thinking.

Lim said his team experienced “tough brainstorming sessions” before developing ideas it hoped would actually bring benefits to the company.

“We achieved this through energy and volatility. Creative products come from heavy brainstorming and discussions,” he added.

“As you know, Samsung has lots of employees who have creative ideas. Based on this experience, we will go further."

The cap is a wearable device that when switched on analyzes blood flow in the brain and can warn doctors of a potential or imminent stroke.

“We will try hard to develop new business ideas. Samsung is supporting creative business projects more, which is good for employees,” Lim said.

The company awarded second-prize to a team who developed a mobile application system that runs on the in-house “Mosaic” idea-sharing system, while the company awarded the third-prize to an employee who submitted 122 new ideas and acquired seven patents.

Since June this year, Samsung has been operating the Mosaic network as part of efforts to collect ideas and to help develop ideas into real products.

A company spokeswoman said the network has 50,000 daily visits from employees and 70 ideas were actually developed.