[Spring 2018] Better life for all: Team Re-Born

Team name: RE-BORN

Team member’s name: Jaehun Shim, Daye Song, Margeunsaem Lee, Sumin Lee

1. Please describe your team briefly.

Our team Re-born is aimed to activate re-use of abandoned paper by creating premiumized scheduler which not only assists freshmen to efficiently manage their time, but also stimulates the students to consciously contribute to resolve paper issues in Songdo International Campus. Through this project, our team expects to actualize social innovation by generating social, environmental and economic values simultaneously, which would virtually reinforce stability of our society.

2. What was the problem you tackled?

We tackled two problems, and one problem is used to solving another problem. It connects with the definition of social innovation we think. We think social innovation is solving one problem with another problem, like 열린 옷장 or solar suit case.

First problem was paper waste problem in YIC Songdo campus. And we solve the first problem by making 이면지 scheduler for solving second problem which is the difficulty of freshmen dealing with their schedules. We made 이면지 scheduler for Yonsei freshmen students to easily manage their schedule. Thus, our scheduler has a honey-tip inner page, bucket list page and etc. Also, our scheduler's back cover is made of trashed poster.

3. What were your solutions for the problems, in detail? Tell me about your project!

To solve both of the problems mentioned above, our team has come up with the idea of making schedulers out of recyclable paper: a RE-Born scheduler that is tailored specifically for university students. Our brand name RE-Born implies that paper is reused over and over again to make something productive, to be “born” again to aid everyday life of our consumers.

RE-Born schedulers, unlike other campaign models conducted by other major universities, value premium features that not only meets up to our consumers’ demands, but is also exclusive in nature. Our schedulers are elegantly designed both inside and outside, implying that our schedulers could be the stepping stone to an enhanced lifestyle of our consumers. The cover page contains our brand name with our signature symbol, Baby Eagle on Earth. The symbol implies that our scheduler is currently targeted for Yonsei University freshman students (The Baby Eagle), having a grand duty to save the environment (Saluting on Earth). The inside page is not only designed well, but it is also highly versatile. Each page was heavily decided based on the recent poll our team conducted to find a customer demand. From the poll, we sought for “customization,” our core design value. As a result, Re-Born schedulers have pages pertaining to other schedulers such as Monthly Plan, Weekly Plan, and To-Do List. In addition, our schedulers, since it is currently targeted specifically for freshman students, contain exclusive pages such as Helpful Tips, Habit Stacking, Bucket List, and a To-Do List that is branched out for maximum efficiency (To-Do List regarding school activities, Personal Relationship, Monetary Issues). Since schedulers do not have strict set standards and is flexible regarding what different types of inner pages it should have, we are planning on designing more exclusive inner pages for our schedulers that meets up to our customer demands and needs.

Moreover, to emphasize our core message that trees are saved by recycling paper, we have decided to implement entertaining animation of a sprout becoming a tree on the top right corner of our scheduler. Our consumers will be able to see a tree grow as they gradually use our schedulers over time, and at the last page, they will be able to find a Personal Information page with a giant tree below with the message, “Through contribution of your paper, you saved nth tree.” Our intention was to give identity to each of our schedulers; we sought to make every scheduler unique. We wanted to send a message that by using our schedulers made out of paper contributed by individual Yonsei University students, our consumers could feel some sense of achievement and proudness that they were able to save certain number of trees. Therefore, each scheduler has different numbers, indicating that the nth tree is saved per scheduler.

As of now, we have finished making our prototype. All of the designs, both the cover page and the inner pages have been designed by one of our fellow members. We are currently working on our revenue model with the retail price set to 4,000 Won, and working to release our products to sell it on the Yonsei University campus..

4. How was the experience of your own project?

Our experience was definitely mesmerizing. Starting from absolute nothing to an innovative business model, we say that Re-Born was “Sic Parvis Magna”: from small things comes greatness. Just the selection of our topic was a big challenge.

We initially thought of the idea of “wooden locks” for the Seoul N. Tower. However, as we felt our stagnation, we quickly moved onto our new topic of “notebook made of reusable paper”, where we started our grand and productive journey.

We have struggled the most when we came up with the ultimate prototype. To come up with our distinction design point, “customization”, we had to collect the opinions of the students, review how the schedulers in the market look like, and draw our own inner pages.

Furthermore, since it was a folded reusable paper, if we miscalculated or misplaced the inner contents, the whole entire scheduler had to be remade: we could only elaborate on this meticulous procedure because we- of course- went through that as well and surely was a great pain.

At times we were cranky and critical to each other. However, rooted from the hardship and three meetings per week, we are like a family now. We still meet up and even in our daily and casual conversations, we find ourselves relating and constantly seeking for the betterment of our schedulers. We call ourselves the authentic and genuine social innovators.