During the Winter vacation, a few SolBridge students spent a busy week at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, to learn further about start-ups and visit two significant NTU spin-offs. Haeun Woo, a BBA student originally from Korea, shares with us her experience of visiting Southeast Asia’s leading innovation hub.

“From 1st to 5th February 2018, I joined a case study trip to one of the best universities in Asia, Nanyang Technological University (NTU). In this study trip, we had an opportunity to visit two start-up companies, TSG Therapeutics, and DQ Institute.

TSG Therapeutics was formed as a spin-off from Dr. Nam-Joon Cho’s Engineering in Translational Science Group, which is based at NTU. When we visited TSG, Professor Nam-Joon Cho briefly gave us a lecture on what TSG do followed by a short Q&A session with him. Being a business student, we greatly appreciated how Dr. Cho opted to speak using simple language without many scientific words. After the initial discussion, we could even visit their laboratories under the guidance of one of the TSG Research members, which was very interesting.

On the next day, we visited DQ Institute an international think-tank committed to improving digital education, culture, and innovation through cross-sector collaborations, global dialogue, and big date research. When we visited the company, Dr. Yuhyun Park, CEO of DQ Institute and other staff members welcomed us warmly as if they looked forward to seeing us. After meeting DQ staff members, Dr. Park provided a brief introduction of DQ Institute to us and shared the Institute’s history and vision. The following Q&A session with Dr. Park was fruitful, and we were surprised that she also asked us about our ideas on their current issues.

In this study trip, I met so many inspiring people who are working in a field that I was not initially interested in before. Their commitment to improving the lives of many people in the world amazed me and motivated me to contribute my effort to make the world a better place to live. Even though we had a very tight schedule, we managed to travel around Singapore in our spare time after the schedule as well (which was amazing). I think I would never be able to forget this trip in my whole life especially because of this unforgettable experience at NTU”.

Nanyang Technological University is one of Singapore’s leading research universities. With a growing global reputation, NTU has achieved to maintain its prestigious status of Asia’s Top 5 universities according to the Times Higher Education Asia University Rankings. NTU and SolBridge initiated cooperation on the student exchange level in December 2017.