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Sunday, May 15, 2016

Southern Korea’s government launches it's first accelerator program with regard to international startups

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