Practical projects covering everything from product and service development to market validation

Kookmin University (President Jeong Seung-ryeol) announced on the 16th that its College of Business Administration has successfully completed a new practical convergence education program.

Kookmin University is promoting innovation under the slogan of “entrepreneurship” and, for the first time this semester, conducted a collaborative project between the Lean Startup class (Professor Lee Woo-jin) and the Digital Marketing Communication class (Professor Bang Hye-jin) in the College of Business Administration.

The project, which was completed on the 13th, went beyond simple theoretical education and the creation of presentation plans, and was operated as a practical industry-academia program in which students directly developed products and services and conducted market validation.

In the Lean Startup course, students experienced the entire process from identifying business ideas to creating an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) and conducting market tests. As a result, three projects were actually developed: △Re-usable Sleeve, △Anti-Swelling Drink (Daily Lab), and △Pet Walking Matching Service (PetVie).

Six teams from the Digital Marketing Communication class provided business strategies and implementation plans for the products and services developed in the Lean Startup class, including △3C analysis (Company, Competitor, Consumer) △customer journey map design △marketing creative strategy development △digital-centric media strategy establishment, similar to actual corporate consulting. The final presentation was held as a demo day with venture capital (VC) investment reviewers who are alumni of Kookmin University, where the results were shared.

Professor Lee Woo-jin said, “The experience of students directly launching products and services on the market and learning from the results through data is an invaluable asset in the AI era.” Professor Bang Hye-jin emphasized, “Interdisciplinary collaboration and practice-oriented projects are very important processes that increase students' engagement and growth experience.”

Choi Byung-gu, Dean of the College of Business Administration, remarked, “This interdisciplinary course at Kookmin University serves as an excellent example of how higher education can connect with the industrial field and strengthen students' practical capabilities.”

A representative from Kookmin University said, “This program provided students with an opportunity to gain market-oriented thinking and practical collaboration experience. A particularly notable aspect of the course was the support provided by the Entrepreneurship Hub (Director Kim Jong-sung), Kookmin University's startup support organization, which funded the project costs to help students turn their experimental ideas into reality.”

They continued, “Through this, students were able to gain valuable experience beyond simple mock presentations by investing actual costs to test products and services in the market. This interdisciplinary course demonstrates the future of practical education, integrating theory and practice, transcending academic boundaries through collaboration, and validating outcomes in the real market. This approach is likely to become an important direction for higher education in the future.”

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