Yudy Impact Hosts Inaugural Conference Post-Rebranding, Announces Leap to 'Execution-Driven Platform'.

Underdogs, which has led the social value-based startup ecosystem for the past 10 years, announced its transformative evolution into UD IMPACT and successfully held its first official event, the ‘Reimagine, IMPACT 2025’ conference, on the 22nd. This conference, held at Community House Masil in Jeong-dong, Seoul, went beyond a mere name change, serving as a platform for UD IMPACT to declare its strong vision of evolving from its existing focus on startup education to an ‘action-oriented platform.’ This event, sponsored by the Korea Social Enterprise Promotion Agency and law firm The Ham, gathered over 200 people including entrepreneurs, impact investors, and public institution officials to explore sustainable growth solutions for social enterprises. In his welcoming address, Kim Jeong-heon, CEO of UD IMPACT, emphasized that "we have been with those who believe in action more than words, and now is the time for that action to be designed into a sustainable structure," and revealed his ambition to "build an action-oriented impact platform that encompasses regions, technology, generations, and organizations." He stressed that this name change is "a declaration of what we will do, with whom we will connect, and how far we will expand," foreshadowing greater impact under the new mission of 'Unite Diversity for Impact.' The conference, held under the theme of 'Reimagining Impact,' proceeded with in-depth discussions divided into three core sessions. In the 'Local Possibilities' session, actual cases of creatively solving region-based problems through entrepreneurship were shared, and the 'Global Expansion Strategies' session highlighted successful overseas expansion strategies and know-how for social ventures. Notably, the CEO of Borderless Japan, a leading company in Japan's impact ecosystem, personally attended and garnered attention by stating, "The fundamental entrepreneurial problems between countries are surprisingly similar," suggesting the possibility of deep cooperation with the Korean startup ecosystem. Finally, the 'Impact IPO and Corporate Structure' session, based on UD IMPACT's ongoing IPO preparation process, deeply discussed methods for designing robust financial structures for social enterprises. Underdogs, which has cultivated over 20,000 'Actpreneurs' (entrepreneurs who act) over the past decade and established itself as a byword for startup education, now plans to evolve beyond mere education into an impact platform that organically connects technology, ESG, and global markets. An official from UD IMPACT stated, "Going forward, we will expand diverse partnerships to foster an action-oriented ecosystem, and concentrate all our efforts on structural design to make sustainable impact a reality."