Lee Min-hwa, start-up pioneer and entrepreneurship educator, dies at 66
Lee Min-hwa.
By Park Si-soo
Lee Min-hwa, a start-up pioneer, entrepreneurship professor and prolific writer about innovation, died of a heart attack on Saturday. He was 66.
He was healthy and energetic until recently ― his last
photo on July 31 shows him and his wife smiling on Naksan beach in Gangwon Province.
His body lies at the Asan Medical Center.
Born in 1953 in Daegu, Lee studied electronic engineering at Seoul National University and earned master's and doctor's degrees in the same discipline from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST).
He founded South Korea's first medical device startup Medison in 1985, which was later merged into Samsung Electronics and renamed Samsung Medison.
He played a key role in establishing Korea Venture Business Association, a non-profit organization promoting the interests of domestic startups, in 1995 and KOSDAQ, a stock exchange for investment-hungry mid- and small-cap companies, in 1996. He has spearheaded a variety of activities aimed at making South Korea startup-friendly.
As a professor, since 2009 he has taught about entrepreneurship and innovation at KAIST. He was also a prolific writer about innovation, deregulation, the Fourth Industrial Revolution and other up-to-date issues that can reshape our daily lives and Korea's industrial landscape, based on his first-hand experiences and empirical knowledge.
His funeral is scheduled for Tuesday.