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“Managing Failure and Turning It into Learning” – 2026 KAIST Awards for Ambitious Failure Grand Prize Goes to Undergraduate Star
Author
KAIST CAF
Date
2026-03-27 14:48:46
KAIST has announced the recipients of its third annual Awards for Ambitious Failure. First launched in 2024, the Awards for Ambitious Failure recognize members of the community who have created meaningful change not through outcomes alone, but through the process of challenge and learning from failure across research, education, entrepreneurship, and administration. Awardees receive a presidential citation along with a monetary prize.This year’s Grand Prize was awarded to Dango, an undergraduate startup team in the entrepreneurship category. The team was highly recognized for prioritizing a deep understanding of real-world problems over short-term results, and for consistently transforming repeated failures and rejections into learning opportunities.
During their early startup phase, the Dango team experienced elimination in preliminary rounds due to immature ideas and limitations in problem definition. They subsequently faced a series of setbacks, including changes in business direction, the departure of a key co-founder, and repeated negative feedback from the market. At one point, the team’s very survival was at risk following the loss of core talent. However, led by Wontae Song, the team chose to rebuild and take on the challenge again.
After restructuring, the team developed ideas such as a “coupon app” and a “loyalty management app” aimed at improving marketing for small restaurant businesses. Yet again, they encountered substantial negative feedback. Rather than dismissing this as mere opposition, the team interpreted it as a signal that their underlying assumptions were flawed. They returned to the field, conducting in-depth interviews with dozens of restaurant owners. As a result, they boldly abandoned their initial hypotheses and pivoted their business model toward directly connecting local business owners with loyal customers within neighborhood commercial districts. This shift led to the acquisition of paying MVP customers and tangible progress, culminating in a Gold Prize at the KAIST App Startup Program.
The Center for Ambitious Failure (CAF) commented, “The Dango team exemplifies the spirit of the Awards for Ambitious Failure most clearly in that they neither romanticized nor avoided failure, but instead treated it as something to be managed and learned from. Their process of building stronger execution capabilities through failure itself was the key reason for their selection as the Grand Prize winner.”
In the research category, the Failure Award was presented to Kyungran Jung, a postdoctoral researcher at the K3I-KAIST AIPC Research Center. Despite experiencing career interruptions in her 30s and 40s, repeated rejections from academic programs, and severe financial hardship during her doctoral studies, Dr. Jung persisted in her research journey. Rather than choosing safer paths to minimize failure, she embraced failure as part of the learning process. Drawing from her own experiences, she has expanded her work into the topic of organizational learning from failure. She was recognized for demonstrating how one’s attitude toward failure can transform both the individual and their research, rather than simply highlighting success after failure.
The Failure Award in the education category was awarded to Sung Yong Kim, Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. In pioneering education in the relatively underrepresented fields of Earth and ocean sciences at KAIST, Professor Kim faced challenges such as low awareness and limited institutional support. Rather than simply extending existing curricula, he developed new courses, published textbooks in both Korean and English, and launched online lectures through KOOC, steadily building educational assets. In particular, his repeated efforts to translate complex subject matter into accessible language and relatable analogies for students were recognized as an example of expanding opportunities beyond existing limitations.
In the administration category, the Failure Award was given to KyungJin Min, Administrative Staff, Information & Communications Team. In response to recurring civil complaints and system overloads, Min initially attempted to introduce technical solutions, but these efforts were repeatedly blocked due to budget constraints and decision-making structures. However, through these failures, Min identified that the root cause was not technological limitations, but inefficient user behavior driven by misinformation and rumors. By analyzing complaint patterns, correcting information, and redefining operational principles, Min implemented step-by-step improvements to administrative processes. This led to measurable outcomes, including reduced call wait times and a more stable complaint management system.
The Awards for Ambitious Failure are not intended to simply console or glorify failure. Rather, they aim to transform failures encountered in the process of challenge into learnable lessons and to disseminate these lessons as valuable assets for the broader community. The stories of the 2026 award recipients once again demonstrate that failure is not the endpoint of frustration, but a starting point for better judgment and more effective action. KAIST will continue to foster a culture where failure is openly shared and actively learned from.
| 2026 KAIST Awards for Ambitious Failure Recipients Grand Failure Award Team Dango - School of Computing: Wontae Song, Hyewon Hwang, Jaeyoung Heo - Department of Industrial Design: Jueon Park, Eun Ji Shin - School of Electrical Engineering: Hyunwoo Hwang, Dongseok Ji Failure Award Research: Kyungran Jung (K3I-KAIST AIPC Research Center, Postdoctoral Researcher) Education: Sung Yong Kim (Department of Mechanical Engineering, Associate Professor) Administration: KyungJin Min (Information & Communications Team, Administrative Staff) |
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