Hanyang University is leading in the field of entrepreneurship, being selected as the domestic university of top bencher CEO production and startup education. Alumni Kim Jae Hyuk(Department of Industrial Engineering, class of 13) established LetinAR, AR optical lense business, while he was enrolling in university in 2016. LetinAr is writing a success story of undergraduate entrepreneurship, making tremendous achievements such as reaching 17.1 billion won of accumulated investment, receiving 2017 Ministry of SMEs and Startups minister award and 2022 CES innovation award.

When making decisions for his career, Kim chose to start a business. In his Junior year in university, while making a decision of his future career, advancing to graduate school or starting a business, Kim and his friend began pay attention to the AR glass field. He called back that “Receiving news about Google glass and Facebook merger of Oculus, I thought it was the right time to start the AR glass business.” He said “we started our business after we came up with the idea of adapting the principle of sun eclipse to AR glass."

When he was a university student, Kim built up his startup ability by experiencing various in campus activities. By attending major courses such as technology management and venture startup theory, he accumulated his practical skills of property management and data processing. Kim could learn about a project's planning to finishing through participating in an undergraduate lab internship and Hanyang Academic Town LION. He commented that “Knowledge of Industrial Engineering and Computer Software Science and experiences from multiple projects from undergraduate time have helped me a lot until now in managing my company.”

LetinAr is a corporation founded with the goal of “Embodying the amazing artificial reality into daily life.” LetinAR mainly develops, manufactures, and sells lense and modules needed for AR glass. AR glass is a wearable electronics in a form of glass that embodies artificial reality contents on a clear lense, which is used in industrial and medical fields. AR glass is considered a developed form of smartphone with global major companies earnestly participating in the AR glass industry.

LetinAR presented "T-Glasses", an artificial reality smart glass using plastic PinMR lense technology, and received the 2022 CES Innovation Award. Kim said that “We are trying our best to be on a par with global major companies in the commercial smart glass market.” adding that “We have made achievements such as 17.1 billion won of accumulated investment and completion of lense modules development. Kim is now in charge of the external relations affairs, investment attraction and systematic operations and management of the organization.

Establishing a company has not been at smooth. At the beginning of the startup, he had a hard time with commercialization after coming up with the idea of AR glass. Kim commented that “We have faced a dilemma: investment is needed to commercialize while a specific product is needed to attract investment.” Kim solved the dilema by gaining chances to meet a lot of people around him such as meeting professors, participating in Hackathon and networking with people in the same industry. He said “I tried hard to gain relationships with the people who can help me establish a startup. During that time, I was able to form a team and get help from seniors in the field to implement the product I wanted to make.”

Kim dreams of a future where viewpoints of people toward the world are changed through LetinAR. He is striving to shift digital contents currently confined to smartphones to smart glass and commercialize the technology.

Kim has dreamt of becoming a person who can realize values by technology. He commented “I have always dreamt of realizing values by technology and even made a tactile map for the blind using 3D printing.” Also, he said “I hope that the AR glass of LetinAR can achieve both commercial success and realization of social value.”

Kim left an advice for students in Hanyangians dreaming of startup. Kim commented, “Since unexpected problems frequently occur in actual startup, it is better to be fully prepared and do your best.” adding that “I hope people challenge startup with the need of plan B in mind, since it is not an easy way.” Moreover, he said “If you want to leave your marks and actively challenge in the AR and metaverse market, consider getting a job at a startup or small and medium-sized companies."