Samsung's Secret Creative Lab Fund 100 Startups; Choi Hyun Chul To Launch TipTalk?
In the past, employees of Samsung Electronics Co. would often see their products created outside the office buried in inactivity and paperwork. This year, an engineer developed a wristband to avoid eavesdropping and the response was different. Samsung helped Choi Hyun Chul start his own company, reported Bloomberg.
This gave Choi the resources and space to start TipTalk, a gadget that transmits conversations through a fingertip pressed against your ear, revealed Taipei Times.
The wristband may create a small ripple in the wearables world, but its development is an annoucement that Samsung has made a monumental shift on their notorious one-dimensional culture.
"South Korean business conglomerates must be feeling that they have reached the limit, so they need some fresh inputs to foster better results," said Choi Yang Hee, South Korea's science minister. "Through C-Lab, Samsung's tapping new growth drivers for itself."
As devices become interchangeable and manufacturers using the same Google Inc software and components, Samsung's year long dominance of the smartphone industry has wavered.
Since the South Korean company needs a new hit, it is giving approximately 350 engineers the chance to work on their own inventions at an in-house hatchery called the "Creative Lab."
This means, Samsung has let these workers take at least a year off from their day jobs, to enable them to pursue at least 100 projects, according to Live Mint.
Some of the projects include a Bluetooth enabled device can help you learn the violin, a sensor for predicting stroke and TipTalk.
Choi Hyun Chul is now the Chief Executive Officer of Innomdle Lab and continues to work on bringing TipTalk to the market this year.
"Before, all I could do was develop a technology best optimized for products Samsung made," said 32-year old Choi. "The biggest difference about C-Lab is that you can make a product based on your own idea, and it could even hit the market within a year."
Employees who launch startups can return to their jobs at Samsung if their business venture fails within five years.
