Investment For Future
The social contribution activities of Mirae Asset are rooted in the company’s vision of building capitalism compatible with human society. Beyond its core task of increasing its clients’ wealth as one of the leading investment banking groups in Korea, Mirae Asset strives to create and spread larger social values. Established in March 2000, Mirae Asset’s Park Hyeon-joo Foundation stands at the forefront in providing support for the underprivileged and people in need in Korean society. In particular, through wealth-sharing practices and the company’s numerous outreach services, Mirae Asset seeks to build a caring and humane society.
Most notably, the Park Hyeon-joo Foundation is famous for its generous and extensive scholarship programs. The scholarship program is grounded in chairman Park Hyeon-joo’s faith in corporations’ social responsibility to groom national talent. As of today, the number of beneficiaries of the Park Hyeon-joo Foundation’s scholarship programs has reached 6,300. The figure includes 2,492 students enrolled in domestic universities, 3,767 in international exchange programs, and 122 under training as international financial investment professionals.
The “Mirae Asset Domestic Student Scholarship” is designed to provide one-year tuition to free young students from worries about money situations in their carrying out their studies. The program targets students who attend domestic universities, come from underprivileged families, and still show a strong determination to carry out their studies successfully. The annual screening process includes evaluation of recommendations from potential recipients’ universities. The “Mirae International Exchange Scholarship program” is designed to provide the recipient with tuition, airfare, and living expenses twice a year. The potential recipient has to be a Korean student who has already received admission to an exchange program offered at an overseas university.
Launched in 2006, “The Global Investment Professional Scholarship Program,” on the other hand, is designed to nurture global financial professionals equipped with both theoretical knowledge and practical experience in the global capital market. The scholarship recipients are currently attending leading universities such as Harvard, Stanford and MIT, and gaining expertise as global investment professionals. The program provides tuition to students with bachelor’s or master’s degrees in international management and finance. The offer is not conditional on the promise that these recipients will join Mirae Asset after graduation but rather based on a broader premise that these students will be important boons for the advancement of Korea’s financial sector.
The Park Hyeon-joo Foundation also runs programs for primary and middle school students. Titled “Cultural Exploration of the Global Village” and “The Global Leaders’ Long Walk,” these programs expose students of low-income families to diverse foreign cultures and offer them an opportunity to immerse themselves in them. So far, a total of 13,036 students have participated in the programs.
The Mirae Asset Group joined hands with the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MEST) in the latter’s effort to promote donations for education-related areas by signing an MOU in July 2012. The Mirae Asset Group is at the forefront as a corporate entity in promoting donations for education-related fields. For its active involvement in nurturing national talent, Mirae Asset received an education donation certification in January 2013 as well as the first education donation award by MEST.
Mirae Asset has steadily been operating support programs for children of low-income families so that these children would not give up their hopes and grow up with healthy personalities despite the dismal realities of family breakdowns and economic hardship. Mirae Asset’s book donation program, titled “Hopeful,” is designed to donate books of matching levels to children. Rather than using libraries or other facilities as a channel, the Hopeful program directly donates books to recipient children so that these children can experience “owning” their own books, rather than sharing them.