On November 25, KAIST held the Smilegate Membership (SGM) Program launching ceremony at the Educational Support Building (W8). Around 30 people, including the KAIST students selected for the SGM program, Dong Ki Yang, CEO of Smilegate Entertainment, and Joongmyeon Bae, Dean of the Office of University – Industry Cooperation (OUIC), attended the ceremony.

Founded in 2002, Smilegate is a Korean game company with regional offices in the U.S., China, and Southeast Asia. Its trademark product is CROSSFIRE, one of the world’s most played FPS games. CROSSFIRE currently has over 400 million worldwide subscribers and over 5 million active users. The Smilegate foundation, established by Smilegate in 2012 to support youth entrepreneurship, runs the Smilegate Membership (SGM) program, which have provided resources and mentoring opportunities to aspiring college students with the passion and potential for game development.

KAIST established a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Smilegate Foundation on June 16 to support the students’ game development activities and to build a startup ecosystem on campus. The KAIST OUIC has set an independent space in campus dedicated to encouraging the SGM participants to concentrate on the program and aim to establish the collaboration with Startup KAIST.

Two selected teams of 12 KAIST students will participate in the SGM program for eight months. They will be provided with office space, tools, and financial support. Not only that, a team of mentors comprised of experts in relevant fields will use their experience and know-how to help the students generate and develop ideas. The students will hold the ownership of their ideas and games developed in this program.

OUIC Dean Bae said, “I expect this program to be a great opportunity for those with a strong passion and ideas for game development to actually make their own game and achieve their dreams.” He also revealed, “We are planning to proactively shape a healthy startup ecosystem at KAIST through synergy from collaboration with various game companies.”

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