[Five Postechians have been selected in three categories: Media, Marketing & Advertising, Finance & Venture Capital, and Healthcare & Science]

Every year, Forbes releases the ‘30 Under 30 Asia’: A list of 300 innovators and disruptors—all under the age of 30—from across the Asia-Pacific who are reinventing their industries and rewriting the rules for the next generation. This prestigious group includes 30 honorees in the following 10 categories: The Arts (Art & Style, Food & Drink), Entertainment & Sports, Finance & Venture Capital, Media, Marketing & Advertising, Retail & Ecommerce, Enterprise Technology, Industry, Manufacturing & Energy, Healthcare & Science, Social Entrepreneurs, and Consumer Technology.

Chanhoo Park (Department of Computer Science & Engineering) and Hyunsung Kim (Department of Electrical Engineering), cofounders of the media startup Geekble, were selected in the Media, Marketing & Advertising category. Geekble produces entertaining science & technology media content—from instructional videos on how to build a flame-throwing Infinity Gauntlet to Q&A videos that answer all-important questions such as ‘if a nuclear bomb goes off, how far from ground zero will steak begin to cook?’—and shares them through platforms such as Naver and Youtube “to bridge the gap between geeks and the world.” Geekble was also acclaimed for establishing a makerspace where scientists can freely experiment to create something new.

In the Finance & Venture Capital category, Myunghun Cha (Department of Computer Science & Engineering) was selected for founding Coinone, a startup that that has grown into one of Korea’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges. With the rise of the cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Coinone rapidly reached KRW 23.2 billion in monthly revenue with over 643,000 users in 2017. Forbes reported that Mr. Cha founded Coinone in 2014 “to build the future of finance based on blockchain and cryptocurrency.”

In the Healthcare & Science category, Research Assistant Professor Hyungkook Jeon (Division of Mechanical Engineering for Creative Emerging Technologies) and alumnus Seonghoon Woo (B.S., Department of Materials Science & Engineering, Valedictorian – Graduating Class of 2011) of the Spin Convergence Research Center at KIST were selected. Prof. Jeon has published over 10 articles in top international journals. He also holds more than 12 domestic patents. Dr. Woo’s collaborative research on spin-electronic technology and nanomaterials led to the discovery of a method to produce the world’s first non-electrical memory. He remarked that the achievement is expected to lead towards “huge benefits in energy efficiency.”

The honorees were selected from a rigorous selection process as more than 2,000 submissions were received. According to Jay Samit, one of the world’s leading experts in innovation and disruption, ‘disruptive innovation’ refers to bringing about irreversible changes to the system or market. POSTECH’s innovative and forward-thinking educational system provides the environment to nurture such visionary disruptors. Honoree Chanhoo Park said in his interview that, “because POSTECH is such a small school, there are actually many more opportunities and systems available to help students pursue their passion” and remarked that coming to POSTECH has been a turning point in his life.