Collaborating with founders, investors, universities, etc. to generate results
| Incheon Songdo Tomorrow City Selected via 3rd Evaluation
12.1 Billion Won in State Funding for the Creation of Innovation Startup Spaces

A Korean version of Silicon Valley will be established in Songdo, Incheon.

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced on the 11th that Songdo Tomorrow City in Incheon Metropolitan City was finally selected as a result of the nationwide open call for metropolitan local governments for the 2019 Startup Park development project.

The Startup Park Development Project aims to establish open innovation and startup hubs similar to China's Zhongguancun, the U.S.'s Silicon Valley, and France's Station-F. Starting this year, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups is promoting this as a pilot project through a nationwide open competition among metropolitan and provincial governments.

Following the announcement of the project plan on March 29, 14 out of 17 cities and provinces nationwide applied. A first round of document evaluation and a second round of on-site evaluation were conducted from May 30 to June 28, and a final presentation evaluation was held on July 10 for the 8 cities and provinces that passed the first and second rounds.

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups formed an evaluation committee composed of external experts starting from the first document evaluation. For the final presentation evaluation to select the final city or province, the evaluation committee was composed of a total of 13 members, including startup policy experts (5 members), architecture and space creation experts (5 members), and journalists in the small and medium-sized enterprise sector (3 members) representing policy stakeholders.

Incheon City, which was selected this time, will receive 12.077 billion won in state funding for the creation of spaces to form the Startup Park. Incheon City is actively pursuing the creation of a startup cluster by combining local funds, including 6.17 billion won in cash and 114.899 billion won in kind (Tomorrow City building).

In this evaluation, Incheon City specifically outlined its plan to remodel idle city-owned buildings to establish a startup ecosystem, including spaces for startups and networking, and to revitalize entrepreneurship centered on IT, bio, and smart city industries.

Meanwhile, Daejeon Metropolitan City, which narrowly missed out in the final evaluation, is conducting a feasibility study for the Startup Park project while establishing a startup cluster in conjunction with TIPS Town, which is scheduled for completion next year.

In addition, for cities and provinces that passed the first and second evaluations but were not selected, a feasibility study for the startup park development project will be conducted based on the business plan submitted by the region.

The feasibility study for the Startup Park development project will be entrusted to a specialized research institution, and the Ministry of SMEs and Startups plans to decide whether to proceed with the project in the medium and long term based on the results of the study.

Kwon Dae-soo, Director General of Startup Promotion Policy at the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, stated, “We plan to develop the Startup Park as an innovative startup space where local entrepreneurs, investors, universities, and research institutes can cooperate and exchange ideas to generate results,” adding, “Moving forward, the Ministry plans to collaborate with Incheon City to ensure it becomes a leading success story in revitalizing innovative startups.”