The Korean-American Scientists and Engineers Association (KSEA) held the 1st Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Partners’ Upscale Program (STEP-UP) ONSITE in Baltimore, Maryland and ONLINE for 4 days beginning September 21st, 2020 with the mission to promote and enrich the KSEA members’ entrepreneurship and to discuss the success of innovative ventures, especially in the fields of biotech and healthcare.
1. Conference Objectives
The main objectives of the event were the following:
- Boost the possibility of success of innovative ventures of KSEA scholars, researchers, and young generations by providing them with essential knowledge and experience needed in starting new endeavors with their novel ideas in biotechnology and advanced engineering.
- Establish a platform for sharing strategies and ideas to accelerate the growth with risk mitigation for small and medium-sized venture companies.
- Build a new ecosystem of Korean-American ventures in biotechnology by inducing collaborations among KSEA scholars, scientists, entrepreneurs, lawyers, marketers, and related experts.
- Provide Korean startups and small and medium sized companies in biotech and healthcare with the opportunity to set up a partnership with Korean-American scholars, scientists, engineers, professional managers, investors, lawyers, and marketers in the fields.
2. Conference Format
STEP-UP 2020 was held for the first time as an Online / in-person (Baltimore, MD) hybrid event. A large conference room was reserved for on-site operation meeting the government guidelines in the COVID-19 pandemic. The online conference was hosted through a combination of Whova and Zoom Webinar to enable the participants to actively network with other attendees as well as to provide good multimedia experience of the presentations and in networking sessions.
The STEP-UP 2020 was supported by KSEA Affiliated Professional Societies (APS) and local chapters including KITEE (Korean-American Innovative Technology Engineers and Entrepreneurs), KAPAL (Korean-American Professional Association in Life Sciences), KLAM (Korean Life Scientists Association of Maryland), and KSEA Baltimore Chapter.
3. Committee
A committee was formed to prepare and execute the STEP-UP 2020 as shown in Table 1.
Table 1: STEP-UP 2020 Committee
| Executive Committee | ||
| STEP-UP Chair | Kyeong Ho Yang | KITEE President |
| STEP-UP Co-Chair, Entrepreneurship Academy | Deok-Ho Kim | Johns Hopkins University, Associate Professor |
| STEP-UP Co-Chair, Fundraising Program | Tae Heum Jeong | KSV Global Innovations, Managing Partner |
| STEP-UP Co-Chair, Program / Local Arrangement | IL Minn | Johns Hopkins University, Assistant Professor |
| STEP-UP Co-Chair, Startup Showcase | Nayoung Lee Louie | Neuraly Inc., Director of Strategy |
| STEP-UP Co-Chair, Program / Publication | Luke Oh | KAPAL President |
| Advisor | Jun-Seok Oh | KSEA 48th President |
| Committee Members | ||
| Public Relations Chair | Changmo Kim | KSEA PR Director |
| Public Relations Co-chair, Social Media | Jeong Kuen Song | KAPAL Vice President |
| Young Professional Chair | Claire Hur | Johns Hopkins University, Assistant Professor |
| Local Arrangement Chair | Eunyoung Kim | KLAM President |
| Local Arrangement Co-chair | Seung-Eon Roh | KLAM Vice President |
In addition to the committee members, KSEA HQ Staff shown in Table 2 supported the event in various aspects including finance and website management.
Table 2: KSEA HQ Supporting Staff
| Administration Support | Euna Yoon | KSEA Administrative Manager |
| Finance Management | Kelly Han | KSEA Finance Manager |
| Website Management | Katie Park | KSEA IT Manager |
| Website Management | Joon-Seok Kim | KSEA IT Director |
4. Program
The STEP-UP 2020 Program consisted of 17 presentations by 21 speakers, excluding congratulatory remarks, welcoming remarks, and opening remarks. Program Overview is as below.
September 21, 2020 (Monday)
Opening (20:00 – 20:55)
Moderator: Claire Hur, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Johns Hopkins University
- Opening Remarks, Kyeong Ho Yang, Ph.D., STEP-UP Chair
- Welcoming Remarks, Soolyeon Cho, Ph.D., KSEA President
- Congratulatory Remarks, Sung-kwang Yang, Ph.D., INNOPOLIS President
- Keynote Speech – “Toward the Cure of Parkinson’s Disease: from Bench to Bed”, Kwang-Soo Kim, Ph.D., Professor, Harvard Medical School/McLean Hospital
Coffee Break (20:55 – 21:00)
Academic Entrepreneurship (21:00 – 23:00 – A)
Moderator: Nayoung Lee Louie, Ph.D., Director of Strategy, Neuraly Inc.
21:00 – 21:45: “Academic Entrepreneurship”, Phillip Phan, Ph.D., Alonzo and Virginia Decker Professor, Johns Hopkins Carey Business School
21:45 – 22:30: “From Invention to Impact: Empowering Researchers through the NSF I-Corps and Customer Discovery Training”, Jim Chung, M.A., Associate VP for Research, George Washington University
22:30 – 23:00: “Sharing Experience in Labs to Business” Joonyul Kim, Ph.D., CEO of Ciscovery Bio Inc.
Entering the US Market (21:00 – 23:00 – B)
Moderator: Sang Tae Park, Ph.D., CEO, COREE LLC
21:00 – 21:45: “Strategy in Entering the US Market”, Jinyong Oh, MBA, AMP, Senior Director, Johnson & Johnson, Medical Devices
21:45 – 22:30: “Collaboration with Korean-American Scientists to Effectively Enter the US Market”, Kyeong Ho Yang, Ph.D., KITEE President
22:30 – 23:00: Q/A & Panel Discussion
September 22, 2020 (Tuesday)
FDA and Regulatory Strategy (20:00 – 23:30)
Moderator: Luke YS Oh, Ph.D., KAPAL President
20:00 – 20:40: “Regulatory Strategies in Drug/Biologics Development and Approval”, Hae Young Ahn, Ph.D., CEO of Ahn Bio Consulting
20:40 – 21:20: “FDA – Regulating Medical Devices”, Do-Hyun Kim, Ph.D., CEO of BT Solutions
Coffee Break (21:20 – 21:30)
21:30 – 21:40: “Sponsor Introduction”, Scheer Partners
21:40 – 22:20: “Legal and Regulatory Requirements under FDA Law & Due Diligence during Transactions”, Cori Goldberg, J.D., MPH, Partner and Sung Won Park, J.D., Senior Associate, Reed Smith Law Firm
22:20 – 23:00: Q/A & Panel Discussion
September 23, 2020 (Wednesday)
IP Strategy and the Law (20:00 – 23:00) – KOR/ENG
Moderator: Jeong Kuen Song, Ph.D., KAPAL Vice President
20:00 – 20:30: “Patent for startups”, Janice H. Logan, Ph.D., J.D., Partner, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP.
20:30 – 21:00: “Patent for cross border companies”, Minchul Yang, Ph.D., J.D., Managing Partner, STIP Law Group
21:00 – 21:30: “Technology licensing / transfer for startups and cross border companies”, Nayoung Lee Louie, Ph.D., Director of Strategy, Neuraly Inc.
Coffee Break (21:30 – 21:40)
21:40 – 22:10: “Company Structures of Cross-Border Companies”, Don Ryu (CPA & Founder of Pistis Tax Advisors), Tae Heum Jeong (KSV Global Innovations), and Nayoung Lee Louie (Neuraly Inc.)
22:10 – 23:00: Q/A & Panel Discussion
September 24, 2020 (Thursday)
Fundraising (20:00 – 22:20)
Moderator: Tae Heum Jeong, Managing Partner, KSV Global Innovations
20:00 – 20:30: “Non-Dilutive Funding”, Il Minn, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Johns Hopkins University
20:30 – 21:00: “US Healthcare Finance Market Overview”, Mark Dempster, Managing Director, STIFEL
21:00 – 21:30: KSEA’s Support for Entrepreneurship, Jun-Seok Oh, Ph.D., KSEA Entrepreneurship TF Chair
21:30 – 22:20: Investor Panel Discussion
- Tae Heum Jeong, Managing Partner, KSV Global Innovations
- John Nahm, Managing Partner, Strong Ventures
- Ohsang Kwon, Ph.D., MBA, Managing Partner, Primer Sazze
- David R. Kim, Head of Eastern US, The Yozma Group
Coffee Break (22:20 – 22:30)
Closing (22:30 – 23:00)
Moderator: Claire Hur, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Johns Hopkins University
- Award Ceremony – (comment: 감사패 & a very short speech, raffles – NL to think)
- Closing Remarks, Kyeong Ho Yang, Ph.D., STEP-UP Chair
- Introduction to UKC 2020, Soolyeon Cho, Ph.D., KSEA President
For details, please refer to the Program Book downloadable at:
https://stepup.ksea.org/2020/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/KSEA_STEP-UP_2020_program_book.pdf.
5. Participants
Despite the challenges given the current situation of the pandemic, it was a successful event with a registration of 230 participants. Out of those 230 participants, 174 participants registered from the KSEA registration site whereas the rest of 56 participants were from KOREA through INNOPOLIS (See Figure 1).
Figure 1: Participants at the STEP-UP 2020
The number of average participants were 107/day with the highest number of participants of 113 on the first day of the conference. 25 participants (about a fourth of the total participants) attended in-person.
Breakdown of participants in career status is shown in Figure 2. For those from Korea, the majority of the participants were currently in industry, making up half of all participants from Korea. For those from the KSEA (U.S. side), the 2 most represented types of career statuses were Academia and Industry making up 2/3 of all participants.
Figure 2: Breakdown of Career Status, (a) from the US and (b) from Korea.
Across all the participants, the type of role that was best represented around the startups was “Technology Partner” with 72 participants identifying this role as their current or preferred role around startups. There was also a considerate number of 52 participants identifying “Mentor” as their current or preferred role around startups as well.
Figure 3: Preferred roles of participants around startups.
Aside from the type for role, the types of interest around startups that were most popular were “Start a venture” and “Strategic partnership” as shown in Figure 4. There were 82 participants interested in starting a venture and 80 participants interested in strategic partnership.
Figure 4: Interests of participants around startups.
6. Next Step
Overall feedback after the event and the result of the participants analysis were very encouraging. The analysis of the participants showed that many KSEA members in the biotech and healthcare field are very interested in starting their own ventures and/or working with startups as strategic partners as shown in Figure 4. In order to encourage and support them to develop their innovative ideas to next level, the STEP-UP 2020 Committee decided to work with the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Symposium (IES) Committee of the US-Korea Conference (UKC) by providing them with the opportunity to network with high-profile entrepreneurs and investors, listening to the stories of those who have successfully exited their companies, and learning about the best practices of startups, from protecting your intellectual property and assets to securing funding from venture capitalists and government agencies. The Committee also encouraged participants to come pitch to potential investors at the UKC Startup Pitch Competition about how their solution seeks to improve the synergy between the US and Korea.
The Committee plans to hold the next STEP-UP event in the Spring of 2021 to extend the target fields to Artificial Intelligence (AI), Data Science, and ICT.
7. Photos from the event
Below are selected photos from the STEP-UP 2020 event.
KSEA e-Letters 