- writing date 2024.10.02
- author Communication Team
- hits 6
A festival for those who are dreaming of changes in the world
The first Change Makers Forum was held in celebration of the 120th anniversary of KU in the International Remote Conference Room of the Centennial Memorial Samsung Hall on May 7. ‘KU Change Makers' is a social innovation program in which students analyze issues faced by local communities and collaborate with those communities to find and implement sustainable solutions. At this forum, Kwon Soon-young (Agricultural Chemistry, Class of 65), President of Nutrition & Education International (NEI), gave a keynote speech, and some excellent Change Makers teams presented their results and received awards. The KU Institute for Sustainability, which hosted the forum, piqued the interest of KU members and requested their participation, on the basis that people's interest in and empathy for issues are essential in making changes. Let's take a look at the stories introduced at the forum, while hoping that the activities of Change Makers will bring meaningful changes not only locally but also globally.
The keynote speech by Kwon Soon-young, President of Nutrition & Education International (NEI)
President Kwon headed to Afghanistan in 2003 after seeing research results showing that one in four Afghan children die from malnutrition before the age of five. At that time, he proposed a soy protein nutritional diet to solve the protein deficiency problem, and the local response was good. Thereafter, he worked with soybean cultivation experts from Illinois State University to cultivate high-quality soybeans on a trial basis, and after a strict selection process, the team developed in just eight years soybeans that local residents could produce on their own. As of last year, NEI has entered 31 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces and trained over 130,000 farmers. Kwon’s goal is to accomplish the production and consumption of 300,000 tons of soybeans each year by 2035, so that in no country do people die due to protein deficiency. Kwon, an alumnus of the Department of Agricultural Chemistry, expressed his affection for his juniors and emphasized the need for everyone in the field to have a humane mindset along with expertise.
Storybooks in Braille by Team ‘Yiyagi’
Lee Ye-yeong (Department of English Language and Literature, Class of 21) and Kim Dae-won (Department of Political Science and International Relations, Class of 22) of Team ‘Yiyagi’
Team ‘Yiyagi,’ which won first prize, published storybooks in Braille for visually impaired children. There are 1,937 visually impaired students attending kindergartens and schools in Korea, but only 0.2% of all books are published in Braille. Beginning with this knowledge, the team’s goal was to resolve the lack of storybooks in Braille in order to narrow the educational gap for visually impaired children and provide them with enjoyable reading experiences. With the visually impaired children who are learning Braille for the first time in mind, high-quality storybooks were selected, and Braille books were produced and donated to libraries. In addition, follow-up activities are underway to establish educational activities for non-disabled children and draft and propose ordinances on Braille books and publications in order to sustain and propagate Yiyagi’s accomplishments.
Barrier-Free Map of Team ‘THE Jjangdol’
Choi Seong-woong (Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Class of 15) of Team ‘THE Jjangdol’
Barrier-free map of the KU Science and Engineering Campus
Team ‘THE Jjangdol’ created the 2024 KU Science and Engineering Campus 'Barrier-Free Map.' The goal was to provide information on university facilities for the disabled, such as restrooms, ramps, and elevators for the disabled on the campus, in order make the facilities more convenient for their users. In particular, the map enabled users to check the environment of buildings and restrooms with barrier-free restrooms in advance. In addition, the team completed an upgraded version of the map by supplementing the 'Barrier-Free Restroom Map' of the 2023 KU Humanities Campus to include information on building accessibility, vertical spaces, and barrier-free facilities.