Starting in December 2012, Samsung C-Lab Inside was established to encourage Samsung employees to discover new ideas and foster a culture of creativity. In the 10 years since its inception, C-Lab Inside has incubated 365 projects and engaged more than 1,500 Samsung employees. This month, Samsung announced support for two other startups, bringing the total number of startups that the company supports to 59.

In the age of digital learning, it’s no surprise that Samsung Electronics has selected two EdTech startups innovating in learning and teaching. The two chosen startups are ‘Piloto’, an AI-driven, parental control app that encourages kids to interact with technology safely and thoughtfully, and ‘EdInt’, an AI-driven service that proctors and manages online exams.

Read on to learn more about C-Lab Inside, the spin-off program, and the latest two startups shaping the future of the education industry.

Piloto: An AI Companion for Keeping Children Safe Online

Piloto is an AI-based training solution that uses a friendly AI character to help regulate children’s screen usage and correct their posture while using smart devices.

According to South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT report, 28.4% of children between the ages of 3 and 9 are at high risk for smartphone addiction. As indicated in the report, the biggest cause of smartphone addiction in young children is that parents do not know how to teach their children healthy smartphone habits.

The Piloto team is led by Ms. Lee Dayoung, who majored in early childhood education. Given that children tend towards ‘animistic thinking’, or the idea that everything in the world is alive, Lee has developed a solution in which an AI character ‘lives’ in a smart device and speaks to the child like a friend.

The AI character helps children develop the ability to self-regulate their screen time by teaching them how to set their own usage time goals. The app also uses a unique natural language processing conversation model to identify the child’s language ability and communicate with them using easy-to-understand expressions.

Going beyond usage time, Piloto also analyzes a child’s body position through a camera mounted on their smart device and helps them correct any harmful posture. After long periods of play, the app even offers eye exercises to help prevent neck pain and vision loss. In addition, the app also automatically blocks any harmful content, so parents can rest easy knowing that their child’s online content is kid-friendly.

Since the early stages of the app’s development, the team consulted with various pediatric psychiatrists and child psychology experts to create content tailored especially to the needs of young children. Through clinical trials, the app has proven to improve smartphone addiction and teach children how to self-regulate their screen time.

“I want to create an environment where children around the world can run and play in a healthy way in the digital world,” said Lee Dayoung, CEO of Piloto.

Piloto is targeted for release in the second half of this year.

EdInt: An AI Proctor for Online Exams

Due to COVID-19, many institutions were forced to rapidly switch to online testing, which led to a rise in cheating during corporate recruitment and university exams. This trend inspired the creation of the Edu-tech startup, EdInt.

Existing online tests are often difficult to set up, and controlling home test-taking environments is nearly impossible. Supervisors also have to manually identify cheating with their eyesight alone, which can be both inefficient and ineffective.

EdInt, an AI online test management and proctoring service, was developed using object recognition technology and motion recognition algorithms to help organizers, supervisors and test-takers conduct online tests conveniently and efficiently.

By scanning their surroundings with a camera, test-takers can easily build their exam environment to match the guide provided by the organizer. Once an exam begins, EdInt’s AI analyzes test-takers’ behavior in real time and notifies the supervisor of any suspicious behavior. Instead of relying on humans, using AI to detect cheating can significantly reduce operating costs. In addition, EdInt provides a detailed report and full test video that can be reviewed after every test.

“We will expand into global markets, starting with domestic public institutions, companies and schools,” said Won Dongil, CEO of EdInt.

Small Ideas, Big Innovations

For more than 10 years, the C-Lab Inside program has been supporting ideas from all areas of business as well as ideas that contribute to society. Since its introduction in December 2012, 59 projects in the program have been spun off as startups, creating more than 500 jobs.

Projects that are selected for the program receive support from Samsung for one year, including office space, research funds and full creative control over the project development.

The C-Lab Inside program has also resulted in numerous innovations being deployed within Samsung itself, such as Galaxy upcycling, Eco-packaging, Lifestyle TV ‘The Sero’ and new features for mobile cameras and Samsung Pay.

As a result, Samsung has been selected as the best company for in-house venture operations by the South Korea’s Ministry of SMEs and Startups for the past two years. Last year, it was also selected as a ‘Best Practice for Implementing Fair Trade Agreement’ by the Korean Fair Trade Commission.

Moving forward, Samsung will continue to invest in the longevity of Korean startups through its ‘Economic Revitalization and Job Creation Initiative Plan’. Announced in August 2018, the company pledged to incubate 200 in-house projects (C-Lab Inside) and 300 external startups (C-Lab Outside) through the C-Lab program over the next five years.

The company is on track to reach its goal, having incubated a total of 426 projects, including 244 external startups through its C-Lab Outside program and 182 in-house venture projects through its C-Lab Inside program.

Pioneering Future Technology

The C-Lab program has a proven history of fostering successful startup ventures. Recently, 30 startups that have been previously spun off from Samsung Electronics’ C-Lab attracted a total of 120 billion won in follow-up investments, including 29 billion won for ‘Linkflow’ and 14 billion won for ‘Welt’. Moreover, two startups launched from Samsung C-Lab’s first spin-off program in 2015, ‘Salted’ and ‘Mopic’, have also gained recent industry attention for their strong, foundational technology.

The first company established as a spin-off, Salted, is generating stable sales in the golf sports industry for its innovative fitness tracking and coaching solution that uses smart insoles to analyze weight shifting, swing data, balance data and posture data. At the end of 2020, the company ranked first in sales in the Amazon golf training product category and is currently maintaining steady growth in the global market by signing supply contracts in the United States and Europe. Recently, Salted also expanded its business to the digital health care field, based on the foot data accumulated from its patented pressure sensor technology. Salted is currently conducting domestic and international clinical trials for patients who need gait rehabilitation, such as degenerative brain diseases and diabetic neuropathy.

Another notable C-Lab startup is Mopic, a company developing light field 3D displays and image rendering software that can produce vivid stereoscopic vision. In the early stages, Mopic started its business as a smartphone cover accessory that allowed users to enjoy the 3D content without glasses. However, the 3D content market didn’t grow as fast as expected, causing difficulties in the business model. Despite these setbacks, Mopic continued to grow and improve its technology. The company is now receiving collaboration proposals worldwide as an enterprise solution, such as being used for stereoscopic images for medical surgery, infotainment for vehicles, video conferencing and more. Considering the recent rise of the metaverse and the increasing demand for immersive content, Mopic is now attracting more attention than ever as a company specializing in 3D content production and implementation technology. Mopic is currently raising a Series B investment.

Started in December 2012, C-Lab Inside nurtures employees’ innovative ideas while instilling a corporate culture in which creativity is at the fore. The program supports the development of ideas from all areas of the business.

Since 2015, Samsung has been supporting successful C-Lab projects that demonstrate great market potential, and facilitating their launch as startups under the C-Lab spin-off policy.

The five new startups include:

• Blockbuster – A video editing application that allows content creators to easily apply computer graphics(CG) and 3D effects to videos with their smartphones and that utilizes the patented Blockbuster algorithm to generate realistic 3D CG effects by converting 2D scenes into 3D layers.

• Hyler – A smart highlighter that allows analog text to be digitized and transferred to mobile devices. By highlighting with Hyler, users can easily collect information and interact with it through the Hyler app. For instance, the app’s extensive ‘search’ mode provides word information from a range of search engines and dictionaries that are directly linked to the app.

• Haxby – A smart study note service that records incorrect answers from workbooks and recommends worksheets based on the learner’s ability level. Features an AI algorithm that identifies the user’s competence level for each subject and provides customized worksheets to improve learning.

• SunnyFive – A window-shaped lighting device that produces artificial sunlight, allowing the user to enjoy the full spectrum of light produced by the sun’s natural passage through the sky during the day. Helps users synthesize vitamin D while they are indoors or in low-lit places without having to worry about skin aging or sunburn, and allows for brightness and color adjustment via the app.

• RootSensor – A new type of sensor that records daily UV exposure and utilizes its wide incident angle to minimize detection loss. Can be integrated into wearable devices, smart cars and smart buildings, where it provides a UV monitoring system that records accumulated UV exposure and provides information on skin condition and vitamin D production.

The C-Lab spin-off program provides startups with the investment and business consulting needed to help them grow. Samsung also provides a five-year window during which employees who launch startups can return to their jobs if their endeavors prove unsuccessful, meaning that individuals can embark on their entrepreneurial projects without having to fear that they are risking their careers.

As a result, 163 employees have established 45 startups since the inception of the C-Lab program. Not only have these companies raised 45 million USD in funding over the years, but their value has more than tripled compared to the time at which they were spun off.

C-Lab spin-off ‘Breathings’ launched a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign on April 21st for its ‘BULO’ breath analysis device for intelligent training, and has since raised over 72,000 USD for the project. Meanwhile, ‘Kitten Planet’, which launched ‘Brush Monster’ — a smart toothbrush that uses an AR guide to educate kids on how to brush effectively — is looking to expand its business into dental care for adults. Finally, ‘Mangoslab’ — which also got its start through C-Lab — recently released ‘Nemonic Mini’, a portable printer that prints memos onto sticky notes without the need for toner. In February Samsung selected Mangoslab’s Nemonic Mini as a special giveaway item for customers who pre-ordered the Galaxy S20 in South Korea.

“Including these five companies, a total of 45 C-Lab alumni startups have been created as a result of the C-Lab program,” relates Inkuk Hahn, Vice President and Head of the Creativity & Innovation Center at Samsung Electronics. “These results illustrate Samsung’s commitment to investing in employee-driven innovation and promoting the South Korean startup ecosystem. Going forward, we will continue working to unlock Samsung employees’ potential for creative innovation while encouraging the entrepreneurial spirit.”