New frontier ① CEO Kang Sung-ji who developed a smart belt ‘welt’ to get rid of love handles

One of this year’s hottest start-up companies is ‘Welt’ that developed health care wearable devices. 2 people that had worked for Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. founded Welt. Because of CEO Kang Sung-ji’s unique career and his achievement, the wearable device using a belt for the first time in the world, he is in the spotlight.

Welt is the combination of ‘Wellness’ and ‘Technology’, which shows its willingness to develop technology for health. The name of its first smart belt is also welt. The smart belt is the combination of ‘Wellness’ and ‘Belt’, literal meaning is a ‘healthy belt’. Its appearance is similar to a general belt, but it checks waist measurement, step count, overeating, time to sit on etc. People don’t need to wear another device and can get information about their eating habit, daily workout etc. and the information is recorded in an app. It is the birth of the unique product to combine IT, health care and fashion.

CEO Kang is a doctor, graduated from Yonsei University and was in charge of health management policy, such as chronic disease management using U-health at Ministry of Health and Welfare when he was in military as well as developing a health care application.

When he was intern at Yonsei Severance hospital, the Samsung Electronics offered him to work at the wireless business department and the smart belt ‘welt’ was the subject of C-Lab(creative lab project). He has prepared the business with managing director Hye-Kang Rho for about a year and put it in ‘CES 2016’

He made MOU with famous fashion brands in foreign countries and is discussing about commercialization. In Korea, he will release the product with Men’s fashion division at Samsung C&T in the second half of this year. Given his age which is in his early thirties, it’s a remarkable achievement. Why does he want to be a pioneer?

“I planned to major in family medicine and to work at a consulting company, but my senior told me it would be a difficult choice. He advised me to take time and enlist for other experiences. That was a turning point. I got the opportunity to be in charge of health management policy at Ministry of Health and Welfare. At that time, the H1N1 virus issue happened and the new task force team was created under the Ministry. I heard that the team would hire some people to work with. Because that was the urgent issue, I could work for the team. I worked very hard and an official at the ministry suggested me to work longer so I could stay. For 2 years in the military, I was in charge of the policy related to institutionalize health management service such as chronic disease management using U-health.”

The experience was the basis to develop ‘welt’. Dr. Kang established his first health care development company ‘Motive app’. The company was designed to develop a workout application, but people didn’t have much interest in it.

“Unfortunately, my first business failed. The application was developed by the government aid and I wanted people to compete with each other with this app. It provided a discount coupon if they completed each mission, but it was impossible to change without specific motivation.” But the failure enabled him to work at Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. After his failure in his first business, he was an intern at Severance hospital. Samsung offered him the job at that time.

“Samsung Electronics needed a doctor to deal with health care works at the wireless business department. I was the right person because I was in charge of the policy as well as developing the related technology. Instead of a job interview, I did a presentation about ‘The way Samsung Electronics seeks in the health care industry’. I suggested the development of various wearable lineups were more appropriate. In fact, ‘welt’ was the idea I came up with at that time. Eventually, I didn’t come back to the hospital and entered the company. ”


“My dream is to create Welt World.”

Why was his first item the belt?

“I want to develop a device that people can’t even feel the fact they are wearing the device. A wearable device doesn’t need to change users and automatically provides information if users wear the product.”

People can’t wear the same belt every day and they don’t use it on weekends or when they sleep. There is limitation on collecting data. But he said “no problem”. They don’t need to wear the belt on weekends. The device is to collect data when people wear it. If some data are needed when people sleep, they have to use a pillow to check their sleeping habits. Don’t try to intentionally change users. This is the first lesson I learned from my failure.” His dream made the company ‘welt’ as a brand. In other words, he wanted to apply welt to all products in our lives. “The outdoor brand, ‘Gore-tex’ is one brand. Just like people who buy Gore-tex by its reputation, I hope more people would want to buy welt products in health. And I want people to choose products by seeing the Welt logo itself.”

He thinks he will use it to analyze data recorded in applications and expand to medical activities and insurance products.

According to his definition, doctors aren’t a person to cure patients or to conduct surgery but a person who knows a human body very well.

“A doctor who cures patients will be at a hospital or in an operation room, but I enter the health care industry as a person who knows a human body well. Because I know a human body better than general people, I can do better in the related field. If I hadn’t studied medicine, I wouldn’t have thought this kind of thing.”

Maybe because of his experience, he recommends “teenagers” and “doctors” to consider various paths.

“I think it’s not necessary to be scared when they choose different choices that people usually don’t make. Even though they make the same choice as other people, there are risks. Even though there are risks, they can make right choices; they can be ‘Only One’. My first business went bankrupt, but that wasn’t a bad experience. I think students at medical college don’t necessarily need to work at hospitals and hope they make other choices. They are qualified to demonstrate their abilities in other fields. They can take the challenge because they are are young.”

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