π-Ville: a vibrant locus of collaborative idea creation for sharing economy
KU president Yeom meets students in π-Ville and shares thoughts on the dynamics of idea creation 

On Wednesday, January 11, at 10:30 am, a roundtable was held in the auditorium of KU π-Ville Building A, where KU president Yeom Jaeho met with representative occupants of the studios in the facility. KU π-Ville is the first dedicated location in Korea exclusively focused on knowledge creation in various fields, where KU aims to foster pioneering intellectuals who can forge a path to the future. KU established π-Ville to provide students with a new space for the creation, exchange, and accumulation of new knowledge. It is expected that these ideas will drive the creation of startups which use the sharing economy as their template.

At the event, around ten or more startups established by students such as “Iamstudy”, a mentoring service provider that helps reduce private education expenses, “Hidden Track”, a mobile-based audio guide for foreign visitors and other creative startups focused on new media technology gathered to share their thoughts with President Yeom. 

He started proceeding by saying, “I expect to see π-Ville become a place where the 21st century sharing economy progresses through the development of vibrant ideas. The role of universities is no longer solely to offer students an opportunity to study and attend lectures. Now, they should be enabled to develop their creative ideas based on their fields of study. In this light, I hope this place becomes a hub where students create, share, and further develop their ideas. π-Ville is not an exclusive space for the selected occupants, and everyone is welcome to come in and share their ideas at any time. Because of this accessibility, π-Ville is expected to become an incubator of pioneering thinkers, helping them to develop their ideas as well as to display entrepreneurship. For this reason, we are also planning to construct a space dedicated to supporting startups.”

President Yeom further said, “π-Ville has studios open to students, who can come and go at their own convenience. I hope to see them solve various problems by creating and sharing new ideas. Like the parasols that have been placed on KU campus, any other fresh ideas concerning services and facilities available to students, from reforming the course registration system to setting up moving walkways that connect dormitories and university buildings, are all welcome. I expect the operating committee to make π-Ville a place where students can enjoy the process of creating ideas. For example, inviting orchestras to play at π-Ville or asking off-campus restaurants like Youngchul burger to offer refreshments to students there at a reasonable price seem like good ideas.”

President Yeom’s informal speech was followed by a roundtable discussion. Students shared various ideas, mentioning initiatives like raising funds for π-Ville, renaming the studios, and holding hackathons to develop π-Ville's tech capacities. Before wrapping up the event, President Yeom said, “I look forward to meeting students so that we can have more opportunities to discuss the potential of π-Ville. I hope to see your pioneering intellectual attitudes and the culture you create spread across KU campus.”