"Securing Next-Generation Hallyu Culture Source Content" … Seoul City Supports Young Creators

[Asia Economy Reporter Jo In-kyung] The Seoul Metropolitan Government will comprehensively support discovering original source content from young creators that will become the seeds of a new Hallyu culture, developing investable project plans, and providing matching opportunities with investors and producers for commercialization. The goal is to develop young people's ideas into deliverables such as synopses and characters, and to establish a commercialization foundation so that these can be expanded and produced in other fields like games, webtoons, and films.

On the 27th, Seoul announced the plan for the "Seed Planting Creative Support Project for Fostering Hallyu Cultural Content" and stated that it will recruit young creators and professional agencies through the Seoul Business Agency (SBA) website (http://www.sba.seoul.kr).

For the agency sector, applications are open to small and medium-sized enterprises or corporate consortiums located in Seoul. Four story agencies or content companies capable of developing story project plans and commercializing them across distribution and various fields will be selected. Each agency will support a total of four young creators.

For the creator sector, young story creators residing in Seoul (aged 19 to 39) or creative teams with a representative applicant meeting these conditions can apply. The recruitment categories include 12 works in the general category, which calls for original project plans based on unique worldviews, and 4 works in the Korean Cultural Prototype category, which calls for original project plans utilizing Korea’s cultural prototypes, totaling 16 works.

Selected creators (teams) will receive step-by-step support for project planning, development, and commercialization through matching with professional agencies.

A total of 400 million KRW will be invested in this project, with 10 million KRW in creative support funds provided to each young creator and up to 60 million KRW in business support funds provided to each professional agency.

The city plans to invest in promising young ideas to elevate them to global IP (intellectual property) status and foster diverse cultural content that will lead the next generation of Hallyu. It also aims to contribute to job creation in small and medium-sized enterprises by discovering capable agencies.

Kim Young-kyung, Head of the Seoul Youth Policy Division, said, "The expansion of scale and investment in original content is a global trend. Through this project, we will support young creators to focus on their creative activities by alleviating financial burdens and discover and develop high value-added content that will lead the next generation of Hallyu."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.