Lim Joon-yeop (Business 15) and So Young-soo (Business 15) of Korea University Business School won the top prize at the "2019 Future Korea Ideas Contest" organized by the Ministry of Strategy and Finance. The contest was held to raise social interest in future issues and find effective ad creative policy alternatives.The two students applied for the colloquium category and scored excellent results.




1. You have received the top prize for submitting a proposal for the ‘Policy Plan to Help Build Future Commercial Zone through Shared Stores’. Please explain the plan in detail.

‘Policy Plan to Help Build Future Commercial Zone through Shared Stores’ suggests utilizing the form of shared stores to reduce the closing rate of self-employed businesses, which is currently increasing in Korea due to high burden of rental fees. Although self-employed people account for much higher portion of Korea's job market than other advanced countries, the current situation of self-employed businesses shows poor figures in various ways. We focused on the burden of rent, among all the other burdens, and we wanted to solve it by utilizing the concept of ‘shared economy’. We applied this concept to store operations based on the fact that shared economy can enhance efficiency for the future society and presented three support policies: ① support for shared interior costs, ② support for store sharing consulting, and ③ support for store switching risks. With more than two operators under one roof, it is expected that shared stores will bring various positive effects such as increased efficiency in utilizing space and easing the burden on self-employed businesses.

2. Please tell us how you feel about winning the best prize.

We met through Professor Nam, Dae Il’s ‘Venture Management’ class. Through the course of one semester, we developed business ideas. Thanks to Professor Nam’s recommendation, we participated in the Campus CEO Start-up Competition and actually won the second prize, and we are now preparing to start a new business. I participated in the contest to propose policies that could solve government-level issues related to shared stores. I think the biggest help for winning the best prize came from creating ideas through utilizing the possible improvements for institutional and administrative barriers we had organized based on the feedbacks we received during the class and competition. Professor Nam and many other professors gave feedback on business items, which led to efforts to improve policies for the business.