This is Korean entrepreneurship

Lee Yeong-joo, 29, CEO of Soul of Africa, who went to Kenya for a trip in December last year, thought she could make money from local people’s paintings. Kenyan painters’ works were as sophisticated as European paintings but cost much less. She returned home and created a team for a business with her two friends.

She changed her idea after visiting “Tinga Tinga” painter’s cooperative in Tanzania following Kenya at the end of July to further develop her business plan.

“The painters there have no concept of copyrights. European buyers put 500 dollars on the table and ask a painter to give his or her life-time copyrights for all of his or her works. Poor painters sign on the contract without carefully reading it. “Tinga Tinga Tales” which the BBC has copyrights used painters’ paintings without paying for them.”

○ Creating social values with entrepreneurship

Lee decided to create a righteous revenue source for Tanzanian painters. She decided to educate painters on intellectual property rights and pay them the right price, and then create added values by integrating their paintings with the Korean contents industry such as animations or characters. She said, “I’ll exhibit 30 pieces of paintings which I will buy in Kenya and Tanzania at the end of this month to survey Korean consumers’ preferences. I’ll go there with copyrights and commercialization experts next time.”

Lee began to push for an intellectual property protection business in Tanzania after participating in the “Pioneer Village The Nanum (Sharing)” project. The project, hosted by Korea Development Bank and organized by the Korea Entrepreneurship Foundation, sponsors Korean youths to visit poor neighborhoods in other countries and find start-up items helping the locals. It is an attempt to create social values through startups in underdeveloped countries because recent startups in Korea are heavily skewed towards Silicon Valley style information and communications technology (ICT).

○ Chiefs selling corns at a half price

Seo Yoo-na, 26, and Lee Myeong-sang, 26, who created a team named “One Millimeter Act,” are preparing for a grains retail business in Malawi, one of the poorest nations in Africa. The two worked as a volunteer at a non-government organization in Malawi for the recent one year. Lee found a business opportunity as he worked at the agriculture division of the Merry Year Foundation. He sold grains and reinvested profits in volunteer activities. The two visited Malawi again at the end of July.

Seo said, “Farmers produce two tons of corns a year and sell all of corns that they reaped in June, the harvesting season, because they have no money. When the spring austerity season comes in February next year, they have to buy corns which are four or five times more expensive than what they sold. The chief of the Quanzi village, who we met, sells corns at a half price because he does not know the market price. Farmers make losses.”

One Millimeter Act plans to give cash equivalent to grains such as corns, peanuts, and beans which farmers bring in the harvesting season. It decided to sign a contract that farmers shall sell corns when it and farmers reach agreement on the price. It is a promise that it would do business without undermining farmers’ profits in a transparent manner. It plans to distribute the surplus of profits except for the money needed for storing grains and selling them at a proper price and maintaining its operations to farmers.

The “A Design,” which consists of three design majors, dreams of a project which improves water quality in Dharavi, India’s poorest region and the background of the movie “Slumdog Millionaire.” Kim Se-hoon, 33, said, “I was thinking about how to use my design skills which I learned at college and graduate school in a meaningful way and I got to learn about this project and headed for India.”

In Dharavi, children were playing with dirty water in bare feet. Many children were suffering from different diseases because of water. Ho Yong-bang, 33, said, “I thought about many different ideas like a recycling business and leather handicraft but I thought it was more important to improve life-threatening environment than helping them make money immediately. That is why I came up with a sewerage purification device idea.”

They found that India uses strong bamboo trees instead of rebar at construction sites and decided to use bamboo trees as pipes. Ho said, “I’ll develop a module that can connect bamboo trees of five to 15 centimeters in diameter to pumps and water purifiers. If the project succeeds, it will be applicable to other poor villages in other countries as well as India.”

A total of eight teams including these three teams made their first on-site visit in Africa and Asia in July, August, and September. They will make a business plan in Korea for three months until November. Five teams at most will be selected and visit a second on-site visit in December. The winning team will get a start-up subsidy.