Undernamu launched 'Root42'

“Root42 is a community for local businesses.

We actively help local businesses grow digitally.”

△Root42 (by Undernamu)

In August 2021, Undernamu launched ‘Root42’ and had its first meeting with local members, including corporate representatives, job seekers, office workers, and freelancers.

Root42 is the first digital transformation community in Daejeon. It has established itself as an official channel representing the value of Undernamu by regularly sharing trends and broad knowledge about the ever-changing digital realm.

What is Root42, and what do they do? Let’s hear from Henry, the representative of Undernamu.

△CEO Henry of Undernamu Co., Ltd.

Q. Hello, Henry. Please introduce Root42.

“I felt that the networking opportunities of businesses were mostly present in Seoul, so I decided to create Root42 as a community to provide more networking opportunities to local companies.”

“Recently, many companies have been attempting a digital transformation. Unfortunately, however, many local businesses do not feel the need for digital transformation or lack the resources to obtain digital insights around them, so they are lagging behind. Undernamu has created a space for collaboration between businesses so that local businesses, including freelancers, startups, and small business owners, can easily access insights for digital transformation.”

​​”Root42 provides an opportunity to contemplate various fields such as business operation, marketing, and design by opening a community based on the expertise of Undernamu and opening a forum for communication between local companies. We want to help participants get ideas to actively create new added value”

Q. How is Root42's program structured?

“Our community program is divided into two parts: lecture and discussion.”

“In the lecture part, instructors provide tips, insights, and trends for digital transformation, including digital marketing, branding, design, and e-commerce. It is characterized by two-way communication in the form of a workshop rather than a one-way lecture. We conduct a participant survey before and after the program to ensure that the lectures are tailored to the participants.”

“In the discussion part, participants have time to share their concerns related to the topic and develop a solution by discussing it in groups. At that time, using a proven framework such as the Design Thinking Process, we provide facilitation to derive high-quality results.”

△Participants having a conversation during a group meeting.

Q. What makes Root42 special compared to other communities?

“Root42 is the only job-oriented digital transformation community in Daejeon”.

“Through Root42, digital experts, entrepreneurs, and the general public in Daejeon can gather together to explore new opportunities. The parties responsible for digital transformation in each organization can bring the challenges they face to our community for solutions”.

“Because we solve corporate problems with the general public who are interested in digital transformation, we can get creative solutions that we never thought possible. Companies can not only solve problems through Root42, but also form partnerships with talented digital experts, or hire ordinary people to secure excellent human resources”.

We asked Sophia, the manager of Undernamu e-commerce, who has planned Root42 from the early stage.

△Undernamu’s E-commerce manager, Sophia

Q. What is the core value of the Root42 community?
“Root42 places professionalism / innovation / active learning as its core values. We promote interaction between participants to help them gain insights that can grow together.”

“In the company's early days, Undernamu also had difficulties in solving internal business problems because there was no community to share work-related concerns in Daejeon. To find answers to our problems and grow ourselves, we have developed a policy that allows a part of our working hours to be used as study sessions. And we spread the results of the study session company-wide so that we could all share the benefits of the study”.

“We also wanted to share the information and insights gained from the study with Daejeon, our hometown. So we provided a place to share our concerns and insights with companies and practitioners facing similar problems. Based on the experience of conducting a service design boot camp for students in the Daejeon area, we were able to form Root42, a new type of community”. 

Q. How far will the role of Root42 expand in the future?

“Root42 will grow into a social platform for local businesses.”

“We look forward to collaborating with various industries in Daejeon based on our digital capabilities and know-how. Undernamu's mission is to become a representative digital marketing agency in Daejeon, it is the mission of Root42 to help local companies grow and contribute to the development of Daejeon City through digital transformation”.

“We hope to spread a new paradigm of how brands and customers communicate with each other and become a platform where experts and entrepreneurs from various industries gather to create added value. I hope Root42 could contribute to growth through digital transformation for Daejeon.