Korea’s growth is threatened by a dearth of interest in science and technology and the weakening of entrepreneurship.

Ko San, a former astronaut trainee and now venture consultant, has a solution ― linking innovation to business swiftly, massively and without fear of failure.

“We have to establish a virtuous circle that creates successful start-ups like those venture practices in Silicon Valley,” Ko, 36, chief of TIDE Institute, a non-profit institute supporting start-ups. said in an interview with The Korea Herald.

The former aerospace policy researcher was picked as the first Korean to ride on a Russian spaceship in 2008, but was dropped from the program after the center accused him of leaking a classified manual from the Russian facility.

He lamented that science and engineering, the key driver of the knowledge-based economy, are increasingly losing appeal among students. He said the most talented students were choosing higher-paying, more stable fields like medicine, law and finance.

“About 30 percent of science and technology majors are working in their fields while others choose to work in other fields not related to their majors,” he said.

“If we don’t revitalize a creative economy full of small start-ups, it can’t be solved.”

Citing a 2008 study by the state-run Science and Technology Policy Institute, he said 50.9 percent switch to other fields, and of them, 43 percent end up working in non-scientific office work.

Ko established the TIDE Institute with support from the government in 2011 inspired by an entrepreneurial program he took at Singularity University in California.

He enjoyed huge popularity and media attention when the Korean government chose him to train as astronaut candidate at the Russian Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in 2006, beating 36,000 other applicants.

But at the last minute he was replaced by another Korean candidate, Yi So-yeon, after the center said he breached protocol.

Then he entered a program to learn entrepreneurial skills and the latest science and technology trend.

He then studied policymaking and public administration at Harvard Kennedy School in 2010.

“As a man who received rare training to become astronaut in a 40 billion won ($35 million) national project, I wanted to contribute to the policymaking process for science and technology in Korea,” said Ko.

“The question was how do I begin?”

In 2011, he became a venture consultant assisting young entrepreneurs and helping them obtain investment.

He helped two Boston University students, who won the venture plan competition co-organized by his organization and a Korean civil research center in Boston last year, get funding from a governmental startup support center and start their business for a portable manicure remover.

“Helping those outstanding Korean students overseas can be a good way to resolve the brain drain in science and technology fields,” said Ko.

Starting this weekend, he plans to hold a series of venture idea competitions called Startup Springboard throughout the nation to spark creative thinking and trigger creation of new start-ups among college students.

Another part of his job is to help people catch up with the latest trend in global issues and come up with venture ideas that can affect millions of lives.

He said there were not many brilliant ideas in venture fields nowadays that can appeal to investors because they are do not seem new from the outside.

“This is because people are not exposed to the latest trends in science and technology. People still live in the world when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon. They don’t know private companies are developing space shuttles,” he added.

As part of his efforts to spread knowledge and circulate new ideas, he plans to hold a series of lectures on a platform like the TED conferences, inviting Jeremy Rifkin, an American economist and author of books on economic trends.

“What I am trying to do is transfer knowledge,” he said.

“The focus of supporting the creation of start-ups should shift from the hardware aspect to the software aspect,” Ko noted.

But the question goes back to the starting point: Is he going to space in the end?

“I believe I can go space because private companies making spaceships like Virgin Galactic are launching the first private manned spacecraft, SpaceShipOne,” said Ko.

“Astronauts are like the flowers of the space industry. An astronaut is on top of the work of countless engineers and scientists, who are the stems and roots of the flower. What I do now is help the roots reach the ground firmly,” he said.

By Lee Woo-young  (wylee@heraldcorp.com)