민병철 영어

Hanyang University Business Creativity students meet with Korea Telecom (KT) specialists to discuss their business proposals. Seated in front are professor Min Byoung-chul, right, and KT Vice President Lee Sun-joo. / Courtesy of Min Byoung-chul

By Lee Hyo-jin

English educator Min Byoung-chul, a distinguished professor at Hanyang University, is becoming popular with his Business Creativity course at the university.

The university selected his course recently as an excellent one to promote the university's Industry Coupled-Problem Based Learning program (IC-PBL), through which students can learn to solve various problems in real life. Min has been teaching the course since 2011.

In the course, students come up with their own business ideas and share them with professionals at global companies such as Google Korea, Korea Telecom (KT) and CJ Foodville. Through feedback from industry experts, students get an opportunity to develop their business plan and present final versions to senior members of the companies.

Min developed the course with the aim of inspiring students to generate creative ideas and providing them with opportunities to develop their own business plans. "Students can build competitiveness in the global job market by learning industry-related skills from members of multinational companies," Min said.

During the 2020 spring semester, a team linked to Google Korea proposed a platform which provided pet information using Google's search engine and advertising functions.

Another team linked to KT proposed a solution for solo content creators to boost their influence on social media as non-face-to-face activities are on the rise due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Using the skills learnt from the course, Kim Ki-beom, a student who took it in 2019, recently established a company called Pretzel. It provides an exchange student community app. "By working closely with industry insiders, I could obtain practical knowledge and build a network," Kim said.