The Gyeonggi Center for Creative Economy and Innovation is recruiting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to collaborate with innovative startups.

The Gyeonggi Innovation Center announced that it is recruiting companies to participate in its open innovation program, 'Open Bridge,' until February 28th.

'2022 Open Bridge' is an open innovation program promoted by the Gyeonggi Innovation Center with domestic and foreign large and medium-sized companies (hereinafter referred to as demand companies). Starting this year, it will be operated in three major categories: △Open Innovation Acceleration Program △Matching Day △Meetup Day.

The Open Innovation Accelerator Program selects startups through a competitive process that can collaborate with companies in need for commercialization, and provides acceleration to ensure their stable growth. The Gyeonggi Innovation Center's full startup lifecycle program provides essential support, ensuring long-term partnerships between startups and companies in need, without disruption.

Matching Day supports collaboration with innovative startups through public offerings based on the business needs of demanding companies. The advantage is that startups can quickly solve problems that are difficult to solve internally within a company using their technology.

In 2021, a total of four meetings were held with Lotte World, Lotte Culture Works, BMW Group Korea, Daekyo, and Nonghyup Economic Holdings, with 424 startups applying and 55 first-round meetings held.

This year, as in last year, the center plans to support a portion of the cost of cooperation for startups whose commercialization collaborations have been confirmed, thereby solidifying the cooperative system between companies in need and startups.

In addition, support will be provided through review of the following for collaborative startups: △Direct investment review at the center and connection with investment companies, △Funding for commercialization, △Publicity support such as press releases, and △Provision of cloud credit.

Meetup Day is a structure that matches startups through recommendations from the Gyeonggi Innovation Center based on the open innovation needs of companies in demand.

In 2021, a total of 128 startup matching meetings were held with 55 demand companies, resulting in 25 commercialization partnerships.

An official from the Gyeonggi Innovation Center said, “Based on the know-how we gained from conducting open innovation programs last year, we will actively support collaborative efforts between companies in need and startups,” adding, “As we have established various open innovation cooperation models, we plan to operate a more substantial program this year, so we hope that many companies in need will apply.”