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B’ZT‘s founder and CEO, Kiyeon Nam, has been featured in CIO TIMES cover page article “Top 5 Most Dynamic Business Leaders Building the Modern Industry.” The article showcases her journey as a fashion-tech company founder. Click this digital link for full coverage.
The CIO TIMES Article:
Kiyeon Nam is an outstanding fashion designer and inventor who has bought us exceptional products that are used by various companies in the United States. During her early years spent in South Korea, she was constantly motivated by the competitive world growing around her.
Needless to say, she participated in various school activities and won awards in competitions where her mathematical, science, computer programming, and abacus skills were put to a test. Before Kiyeon set foot in the States, her career took its first steps as a fashion designer at E-Land Group, which is considered one of the largest retail conglomerates in South Korea.
Once she was in the USA, she started coming up with products that compete with leading fashion companies such as Donna Karen, Vince Camuto, Elie Tahari, and Adrianna Papell. She has also taken an interest in creating her unique fashion brand that sells products to the markets of Elie Tahari, Chico’s, and White House Black. She is also a creator and licensee of S’HUG®, a versatile cardigan wrap.
A hazardous incident where Kiyeon lost her youngest child at a shopping mall gave a head start to the idea of Beacon Zone Technology.
The Inception Of Her Career
While Kiyeon Nam was a competitive child in her younger years, she was also dedicated to being the best, which has always driven her to give anything she tries out her hardest. Kiyeon’s mother was a small-scale businessperson.
She ran her custom-made boutique, and her father was an entrepreneur. Her father started his career with a moving service company which later transformed into the fourth-largest logistics company in Korea.
It is called Logen Logistics, and this success was another motivation driving stick for Kiyeon. Kiyeon describes the blend of her mother’s artistic and fashion talent and her father’s powerful decision-making when it comes to business as the natural reason behind her success.
She first started in Korea itself, moving onto the international market in the US alongside working on her private market, and now, she became one of the reasons Beacon Zone Technology is such a tremendous success on its own. When Kiyeon was working in the USA, she ended up thinking that she was fulfilling her fashion purpose at its peak.
But little did she know, she still had another step left to grow. An incident involving her youngest child, who temporarily went missing at a mall, gave birth to the idea of combining fashion and technology as a finding device for children.
This was when Nam started to reevaluate her fashion approach. She took her first steps towards developing smart apparel devices that could lead parents to their missing children using technology.
Aims And Ideals That Guide The Company
The main reason behind developing a company such as Beacon Zone Technology is to provide public safety, especially to young ones. It utilizes a combination of smart apparel technology that has been an award-winning patent and a network application for smart devices. The ultimate goal of the company is to bring a smart apparel-centered smart city.
This has been made possible by the company using their machine washable smart apparel solution and their network platform. B’ZT’s smart technology grants implementation in a smart city in the most economical way. The B’ZT technology can be utilized anywhere, from public schools, hospitals, theme parks, senior centers, etc.
The company’s aim reaches out to the noble cause of finding missing people or helping other people. The company concentrates on motivating citizens to help anyone in need. This naturally builds a safe ecosystem between all private companies, citizens, and governmental organizations.
The company provides IoT solutions with the biggest advantage. B’ZT can provide a captivating infrastructure to smart cities that can be used as an anchor to attract start-ups as well as infrastructure vendors that could potentially be leading in the industry.
The safety solution and network platform brought to us by Beacon Zone Technology will also bring social trust to the table between governmental organizations, private companies, and citizens.
Importance Of Innovation And Experimentation
Time and time, B’ZT has proved that innovation is a crucial factor that cannot be compromised one bit. There are three pillars that the company largely gives attention to – user safety, hardware innovation, and software innovation. The gadget in question here is not something that citizens sometimes use and sometimes do not.
Beacon Zone Technology received an enormous purchase order from the Medical University of South Carolina in 2021. There was also a piece of heartwarming news to the workers of B’ZT that it had been officially approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB).
IRB also has been empowered by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Department of Health and Human Services, (specifically the Office for Human Research Protections) regulations in matters of approval, the requirement of modifications in planned research before approval, or disapproval of research.
RBIs take responsibility for critical oversight functions for research conducted on human subjects that are “scientific”, “ethical”, and “regulatory”. On the other hand, when Apple Airtags was launched, Australian stores pulled the product from sales due to child safety concerns.
B’ZT is a device that has been specifically designed for those children and elderly people who may wander and get themselves into dangerous situations. It is implanted in the clothing and is well hidden from the naked eye. CCS Disability Action in New Zealand praised B’ZT and called it a lifesaver.
One of the families that was using a B’ZT t-shirt on their 5-year-old was able to stop the child from walking on the highway. The company takes a child’s safety seriously and while it has failed 11 times, it did not give up creating something that would be beneficial to both parents and children, and thus, B’ZT came up with the latest version of its locator tag.
The Uniqueness Of The Enterprise
Many developers build solutions that can attract big enterprise customers. But B’ZT decided on a different path. They were aiming at solving an everyday issue most parents and caretakers have with children and vulnerable adults. The products from B’ZT and its UndrCovr application were initially brought into the picture for the parents.
Later, it was also used as a safety solution by teachers, institutional care providers, and enterprise customers. Beacon Zone Technology passionately believes that it can be an enormous help to major fashion brands, high-scalers, and retailers with its patented technology and hopes to work with them, eventually.
A Contemporary Entrepreneur
There is always a difference between contemporary entrepreneurs and traditional business models. One of the biggest noticeable differences between the two is the speed of adaptability. The entire world is going through a major phase at the moment, even if it necessarily is not expecting it.
Beacon Zone Technology put effort into developing devices that can be pre-embedded into fashion apparel that was hidden well as well as making sure that a person wearing it will not lose it without their notice with ease. Most location-based tracking device companies used an object that could be easily misplaced or lost.
They also come with a bulkiness that may make the products uncomfortable to put on. Unlike most location-tracking products, such as smartphones or smartwatches, B’ZT uses ordinary-looking clothes that have a location-tracking device on them. They are also amazingly comfortable to wear, and the battery power lasts over a year.
The caregiver can also have peace of mind since they can be assured that their child or elderly being cannot take these devices off. This was another reason that led the company to expand its concept to the UndrCovr network platform where the broader audiences can be part of the network.
Notable Recognitions And Accreditations
B’ZT won the Edison Award Gold in Best Consumer Product in the year 2019
B’ZT was featured on the cover page of TIME Magazine as one of the 100 best inventions in 2019
Kiyeon Nam, Founder, and CEO was one of the top 10 Women in Cloud Entrepreneurs by Insights Success Magazine in 2021
Kiyeon Nam, Founder, and CEO was the final winner of the Global Pitch Competition sponsored by Microsoft and Women in Cloud.
B’ZT is accepted into the Microsoft for Startups Program in 2021
B’ZT was featured as one of the top 50 Game-Changing Inventions by Entrepreneur Magazine in 2019
Insight On Technology And Digitization
A lot of today’s developing technology, largely about social media platforms and retail platforms that focus on the younger generations who come with disposable income and shop out of convenience instead of necessity. B’ZT focuses on a socially responsible mission.
Social media is a large factor that contributes to the worldwide panic and fear that may spread among people, which is unnecessary in most cases. The B’ZT technology, on the other hand, pays attention to motivating people to help out others in need and solve problems directly.
Many of the current platform-based technologies tend to exaggerate problems. Beacon Zone Technology is using the advancement of IoT and AI technology as an anchor to measure its success. They do not do it the traditional economical way. Rather, they consider factors like public health, global health, and their choice to support the community ecosystem.
B’ZT uses the best of IoT, Bluetooth, GPS, AI, and interdependent technologies to invent a public safety “super hub”. This will be one of the major reasons that will help transform our community to one that is growing with enormous possibility than retreating in fear.
The type of technology B’ZT is looking out to become is socially responsible technology.
Company In The Years To Come
The company is looking forward to solving worldwide issues that occur daily. These are issues related to public safety, and it starts with the safety of children in outdoor spaces, taking care of elderly people, people that are acquainted with homelessness, people who have been incarcerated formerly, and a lot more.
But their ultimate goal is not limited to these. There are many challenges that the post-pandemic world will be facing, for example, loneliness, isolation, sudden sickness, and problems related to the physical and mental health of the people.
It is strongly believed by the company that smart apparel technology can be beneficial to the vulnerable population with its advances and connectivity.
Her Advice To Budding Entrepreneurs
Kiyeon Nam advises all the young entrepreneurs out there to become problem solver who solves their problems as well as others. She says that the first thing you should look out for is to be free of your problems as you set out to solve the problems of others.
She means to say that you should start working hard on improving yourself by learning and obtaining the right entrepreneurial philosophies and practices as you develop your solution. She further explains that undisciplined decision-making can overpower the ultimate purpose of your business.
Kiyeon also mentions that some challenges can cause huge setbacks for you and seem like failures, but this should not be the reason to give up your startup. She also suggests that eliminating the word “No” from your entrepreneurial life is a huge plus. That way you forget about giving up completely and keep going.
Check out our shirts and our tracking device for kids here!