Recognition for efforts to revitalize small and medium-sized enterprises with technological capabilities

KT was selected as a mentoring organization for the '2015 Corporate Service Research and Development Project' implemented by the Small and Medium Business Administration for the second consecutive year, following 2014.

KT announced that it plans to provide customized technology/management consulting from domestic expert mentors to a total of 30 excellent venture companies over the course of approximately three months, starting with the 'Business Commercialization Kick-Off Workshop.'

The main mentoring areas are business commercialization diagnosis, mobile app planning and development, hardware product development, and after-sales support. Participating companies can also use the Gyeonggi Creative Economy Innovation Center's infrastructure, including its mobile test bed, IoT research lab, and 3D printing lab, free of charge.

Providing three months of customized mentoring to nurture excellent startups.

Even if small and medium-sized enterprises possess excellent technology and ideas, they often give up on commercialization due to a lack of commercialization processes and know-how. To this end, since 2010, KT's dedicated team of experts in startup development and commercialization has been providing customized consulting services to each company, contributing to the shared growth between large and small businesses and the revitalization of the creative economy ecosystem.

Kim Young-myeong, executive director of KT’s Creative Economy Promotion Team, said, “Through this project, we will reduce the trial and error in commercialization for small and medium-sized enterprises seeking to develop innovative products in the mobile service field, and we will spare no support so that, through cooperation with KT, it can develop into a success story of ‘K-Champ,’ a Korean creative economy model.”

Meanwhile, KT provided mentoring services to 28 companies last year, covering mobile-based service technology, commercialization, and marketing. In particular, global customized map specialist Daviot participated in the mentoring program for its "development of customized global map open API (Application Programming Interface) technology using OSM (Open Street Map, a project to create maps of the world using open source)" and secured 1 billion won in follow-up investment from a leading domestic venture capital firm. The company is currently planning to apply for patents in China and the United States and launch a Chinese version of its map service.