AmorePacific will hold the 1st Idea Contest Beautiful Innovation 2008 aimed at undergraduate and graduate students. This contest to be held for the first time this year was planned as a part of AmorePacific Way, which is a spirit of enterprise that pursues innovation by streamlining communications with customers. So it is designed to collect the ideas of young customers and set up specific action plans to implement the ideas more concretely. 
This contest is divided into two areas: product planning (product concept development and item selection) and product engineering. For the product planning division of this contest, AmorePacific collects ideas for new products and ideas on improvement of beauty products; for product engineering, they collect ideas on basic technology, application techniques and mixed technology to be applied to beauty products. For more detailed information on the contest, please visit the contest website at http://idea.amorepacific.co.kr. Students interested in this contest should make a team of 1 – 3 people, sign up for the contest at the website mentioned above (between May 1 to June 8), make an idea plan and submit it via the same website between May 26 to June 9. 
In the preliminaries, AmorePacific will select candidates for the final, focusing on creativity, logic and feasibility, announce the teams for the final on July 1, and award the grand prize (1 person), the first prize for two persons (teams), the second prize for two persons (teams) and the third prize for 10 persons (teams) through presentations on July 8 (Wed.). The awardees will be granted a total of 30 million won including 10 million won for the grand prize (a community grant included) along with the benefits for “research scholarship” at our Cosmetics Technology Institute and “employment” for the company. Particularly for product engineering, apart from the grant AmorePacific will reward the winners for the intellectual property rights and promote industrial-educational cooperation by connecting the core technology of the company with the others outside the company and introducing a concept of C&D (Connect & Develop) that brings out the new technological innovation through the knowledge network. 
In addition, AmorePacific will manage idea groups of the awardees for six months and award the best group. This is intended for the continued attentiveness to the voice of their customers through the future talents of the cosmetics industry and reflecting their suggestions on our new products, thus transcending the limits of the typical one-time company-hosted event. 
Ok-Seob Lee, Vice President of the Cosmetics Technology Institute in AmorePacific said, "We expect to get closer to our vision of being one of the top ten global companies in 2015 by developing undergraduate students’ original ideas and discovering outstanding individuals with creativity and passion." 
Meanwhile, AmorePacific is committed to listen to the voice of their customers from up close and discover outstanding individuals for their company by holding a variety of contests such as an idea contest, an eco-design contest and other contests for undergraduate and graduate students. In addition to creating strategies against the company’s concerns and having the opportunity to see them evaluated, AmorePacific’s contests receive favorable responses from students due to various benefits such as scholarships, training, internships and employment benefits. 
# Note 1 – Detailed contest information
* Name of Contest: AmorePacific’s The 1st Idea Contest, “Beautiful Innovation 2008”
* Qualification: Undergraduate and graduate students with a two- or four-year degree living in the country (any majors accepted, students on a leave of absence included), and for product engineering, post doctoral fellows included
* Schedule
-  Application Period: Online registration at the contest website (http://idea.amorepacific.co.kr) between May 1 to June 8
- Submission Period: Online registration at the contest website (http://idea.amorepacific.co.kr) between May 26 to June 9 / Only those who send their applications to the company can submit their work.
-  Announcement of the 1st Screening: Application screening on July 1 / Teams selected for the finals / Results announced on the website (http://idea.amorepacific.co.kr)
- Presentation: July 8, location TBA
- Presentation and Awards: July 11, all finalists are expected to participate
* Awards 
Grand prize for 1 person (team): 10 million won as a scholarship, a trophy and a prize
The first prize for 2 persons (teams) – a person (team) in product planning division / a person (team) for product engineering division respectively: 3 million won as a scholarship, a trophy and a prize
The second prize for 2 persons (teams) – a person (team) in product planning division / a person (team) for product engineering division respectively: 2 million won as a scholarship, a trophy and a prize
The third prize for 10 persons (teams) – 5 persons (teams) in product planning division / 5 persons (teams) for product engineering division respectively: 500,000 won as a scholarship, a trophy and a prize
- The 1st screening at the preliminaries – Evaluation of the applicants by staff members
- The 2nd screening at the final – Evaluation by executives from the Cosmetics Technology Institute and Marketing as well as a screening panel of experts outside the company
- Extra points added to award-winners when they apply for a research scholarship or are full-time researchers of AmorePacific’s Cosmetics Technology Institute 
- Award-winners may join the AmorePacific idea group upon request.
* Idea Group
- Qualification: Applicants selected out of the people or teams who achieve excellent results in the idea contest / Idea groups to be operated only for the product planning division. Excellent applicants in the product engineering division may also participate in this group.
- Schedule: Six months from August 2008 to January 2009 
- Activity Details: Working as a team (3 – 5 people per team) 
Suggest ideas – Ideas suggested on subjects offered by AmorePacific every month (8 – 12 days each month) / Frequently reoccurring ideas suggested 
Offline meetings and beauty-related experience programs (twice, September and November) 
- Supports and Awards: Activity allowance – 2 million won given to a group for this period for activities such as experiencing beauty environment, using new products, making cosmetics and visiting the Estherapy, etc. 
Group Excellence Award – The six-month activities are evaluated and the groups that have demonstrated excellence are awarded (5 – 10 million won)

* Contact: rndcenter@amorepacific.com, http://idea.amorepacific.co.kr