The REED:ON club at Suncheon National University took the top prize at the 2026 Local Heroes 100 competition, receiving the Ministry of Education minister's award.

Reed fields at Suncheonman Wetland in late September. [Herald DB]
Reed fields at Suncheonman Wetland in late September. [Herald DB]

A startup team from Suncheon National University has won the top prize at a national collegiate entrepreneurship competition for developing a business model that transforms reeds harvested annually from Suncheonman Wetland into agricultural materials.

According to the university Monday, the REED:ON startup club — competing as a general university team from the Honam and Jeju region — took the grand prize at the final evaluation of the 2026 Local Heroes 100 competition, held alongside the 2026 Industry-Academia Cooperation Expo at Kintex in Goyang. The team proposed a model that converts Suncheonman reeds into biochar and uses the material as an additive in horticultural growing media.

In the competition organized by the Ministry of Education and the National Research Foundation of Korea, which targets university students nationwide with region-driven entrepreneurship challenges, the REED:ON team stood out for translating actual demand from farming households into a concrete product application.

Taking note of the importance farmers place not only on the value of local resources but also on tangible product performance, the team focused on developing an additive that uses reed-derived biochar to improve drainage and aeration in growing media while maintaining its physical structure throughout the cultivation period.

The Suncheon National University startup team that won the grand prize at the Local Heroes competition. [Provided by Suncheon National University]
The Suncheon National University startup team that won the grand prize at the Local Heroes competition. [Provided by Suncheon National University]

A farm-household survey conducted by the team found that more than 75 percent of respondents each expressed willingness to use the new growing-media additive, intent to purchase it regularly, and interest in eco-friendly certification, confirming the product's potential to gain a foothold in the market.

Local Heroes 100, organized by the Ministry of Education, is a youth entrepreneurship competition that identifies regional challenges across all 17 cities and provinces nationwide and calls on participants to propose solutions.

Starting with a student entrepreneurship week in July, the program moved through foundational training, mentoring, interviews and a showcase before the final evaluation was held Oct. 1 at Kintex in Goyang during the 2026 Industry-Academia-Research Cooperation Expo.

Lee Jae-eun, head of the university's entrepreneurship support division, said the result was meaningful in that the institution's anchor project support for nurturing young entrepreneurs had translated into tangible startup outcomes rooted in the local community. "We will continue to identify startup models that draw on local resources and provide support to help students carry their ideas through to actual business launches," Lee said.


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