The ceremony for the AABI Dr. Horiba Entrepreneur Award was held in the inauguration ceremony of the APIN Conference in Coimbatore on August 6, 2009. The Award winner for 2008 was a Korean entrepreneur, Mr. Ahn Keon Joon, the CEO of Crucialtec, a graduate company of Hoseo Unviersity Technology Business Incubator, Korea.

The Asian Association of Business Incubation – the network of incubator association members established in April 2002, has been presenting an entrepreneurship award to the best performing entrepreneurs who utilized the business incubation program in Asia and the Pacific region. The Award was named after Dr. Masao Horiba, the founding President of AABI – who is one of pioneer technology startup company and world-leading manufacturer of industry-use examiners and scientific analyzers in Japan. This awarding project has been conducted since 2005 and the award has been given to entrepreneurs in Shanghai, China in 2005, Taiwan in 2005, and Japan in 2007.  The winning entrepreneur will receive prize money of JPY 500,000 made possible by Dr. Horiba's personal sponsorship.

For the AABI Dr. Horiba Entrepreneur Award 2008, we received seven nominations from New Zealand, Korea, Japan, India, China, Taiwan, and Malaysia. Evaluation was done by judges from 7 different countries. Scoring for these evaluations were based upon 4 criteria: Entrepreneur profile, Innovation and Business Model, Business Expansion and Potential, and Special Services Provided by Incubation Program. With distinguished guests attending the inauguration ceremony and 200 participants in the venue, the winner was announced – Mr. Ahn Keon Joon, CEO of Crucialtec, Ltd. Korea.

Mr. Ahn started up the enterprise based upon his wide range of knowledge and experiences on optic nano technology fields, and then successfully accomplished the commercialization of "Optical Joystick TM" – a pointing device widely installed in PC and mobile telephones nowadays. He tenanted in the Hoseo University Technology Business Incubator, headed by Dr. Kim Hong, since 2001, and now located in the graduate facility called "Can Do Building". Unfortunately, Mr. Ahn couldn't attend the ceremony due to his prior engagement in the U.S., however, on behalf of Mr. Ahn, Vice President of Crucialtec, Mr. JB Kim attended the ceremony and made presentation of successful path of the company. Entrepreneurs' success is also our incubators’ success. All the participants sent big applauses to the winner and shared the successful model of the entrepreneurial company, which will also be born and incubated in our respective countries.

From the next round, the AABI Dr. Horiba Entrepreneur Award will be taken over by the AABI Torch Entrepreneur Award with sponsorships from the Chinese government. The deadline for the 2009 Award will be coming closer – September 15, 2009. Please visit the AABI website for more information: http://www.aabi.info      [Report by Terutaka Tansho, Japan]

           Mr. JB Kim and the AABI executives                                       Mr. JB Kim making speech