In a
bid to build South Korea’s tech community more diverse, the government has
generated an accelerator for startups from globally.
Called
the K-Startup Outstanding Challenge, the program are being organized by South
Korea’s Ministry for Science, ICT and Near future Planning (MSIP), in
cooperation with Seoul-based accelerators SparkLabs, DEV Korea, ActnerLab,
together with Shift. It will allow applications through June 16.
MSIP
director and spokesman Dr. Chang-yong Ahn told TechCrunch that right here is
the first time the government-which has got pledged $2 billion each and every
year since 2013 to the regional startup ecosystem-has directly established
foreign startups. It wants to encourage more companies to arrange business
there and plans to build K-Startup Grand Challenge some sort of annual program.
“Most
innovation is borne from diversity-just consider Silicon Valley, ” she said.
“At this stage any startup and business ecosystem in Korea lacks a very high
level of diversity and also K-Startup Grand Challenge is certainly one step
towards resulting in a more diverse business conditions in Korea. ”
Forty
startups shall be selected to participate during the three-month long program,
which unfortunately begins in September together with includes mentoring from
15 biggest Korean tech companies, together with Samsung Electronics, LG
Electronic products, Kakao, and Naver.
A demo
day needs place in December, and be able to twenty startups will attain $33,
000 in funding within the government, with the top four getting another $6, 000
to $100, 000.
All
companies will work right out the Pangyo Global Startup Campus, which was
opened earlier this current year by the government factored in a new startup
mainstay.
The
program is taking on applications from companies overall industries with growth
opportunity, but it is particularly guided toward gaming, finance, bio-tech,
software programs, and information and interaction tech.
“We
would love to see most of the companies incorporate in Korea, triggering the
creation of positions and development of Korea as the regional technology and
financial services hub, ” said Ahn.
Techsourcenetwork