Class cultivates entrepreneurs

Students and their Professor Min Byoung-chul of Kyung Hee University’s Graduate School of Pan-Pacific International Studies take a photo marking the final session of their Business Creativity class, at the school’s campus in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, Tuesday. The students presented business proposals including creating capsule rooms in school dormitories to provide safe and affordable accommodation to students needing to stay overnight. / Courtesy of Min Byoung-chul

Students propose 'Capsule Dorm'

By Kim Bo-eun

A team of students proposed furnishing school dormitories with capsule rooms in order to provide safe, affordable accommodation for students staying on campus until late. The proposal came during a business class at Kyung Hee University’s Graduate School of Pan-Pacific International Studies in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, Tuesday.

The idea came from a student’s personal experience commuting to school from Seoul.

“Sometimes I studied until late at night in the library and on other days I had to attend club events and drink with members,” Kang Bong-jun said.

“Because I lived far from school, I couldn’t afford the pricy taxi fare, so I ended up staying at a friend’s place or went to a 24-hour spa.”

Kang, who studied in Osaka, Japan, on an exchange program last semester, came across “capsule hotels” while there. These are single-bed-sized rooms for people who need an affordable overnight stay, the first of which opened in Osaka in 1979.

“My aim is to renovate a few rooms of all university dormitories in Korea. The students will be able to check room availability and use them with room charges,” he said.

Since the average dormitory room has space for eight capsule rooms, renovating five rooms will provide 40 students with accommodation every night, Kang said.

The team met up with SK Networks, SK’s trading unit which also operates hotels.

The “Capsule Dorm” was among proposals presented by four teams in the final session of Professor Min Byoung-chul’s Business Creativity class.

Another team presented a proposal on developing an app aimed at generating interest in the upcoming 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics via mobile games.

Over the semester, students come up with business ideas and draw up proposals. The class provides students the opportunity to meet with people in the business sector, from which they receive help in improving their proposals and also get the chance to network.

“It is my aim for students to discover their passion and field of interest, and design the process of starting their own businesses, so they attain competitiveness in the global job market as well as the knowledge and experience required in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution,” Min said.

He quoted Harvard Business School professor Ted Levitt who said “Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things.”

“It is important to put ideas into action,” Min added.

This semester the class had students from Colombia, Poland, Morocco and Denmark. The class is conducted in English.

“I learned how to present my ideas. And I found this is very important in connecting with people in the business field,” said Ann-Sofie Legina, a student from Denmark.

“The best part of the course was trying to solve problems with my classmates. Whenever we were stuck in the creative process, the most engaging moments were when we tried to come up with new solutions and innovative alternatives,” said Pedro Prieto Vargas from Colombia.

Min is known for his English-learning publications and broadcasts. He has also developed "Autospeaking" _ an app for practicing English. It has been downloaded 150,000 times in countries such as Korea, Japan and China.