KT Finalizes Selection of Startups for 'Interactive Communication VR'

[Asia Economy Reporter Koo Chae-eun] KT, together with the Ministry of SMEs and Startups and the Gyeonggi Center for Creative Economy and Innovation, held the finals of the first phase of the ‘Daestar Solver Platform’ and selected three startups as the final winners.

According to KT on the 17th, the startups selected in this contest are ‘Mangrove’, ‘Innertainment’, and ‘Iruda’. The contest is a new win-win cooperation project organized by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups to allow large corporations and startups to complement each other's different capabilities and solve tasks in a total of nine fields including immersive media, artificial intelligence (AI) content, and food tech.

KT selected ‘a new type of interaction virtual reality (VR) service’ as the core keyword in the immersive media field among the nine tasks and held a startup contest. Based on synergy with KT’s personal VR service, Super VR, the aim was to discover new immersive media service ideas that allow users to experience presence and realism without physically going to the site and to support their commercialization.

A total of 52 startups from fields such as performance, education, and healthcare participated in this contest. KT and the Ministry of SMEs and Startups carefully selected six startups through two evaluation stages and held the final finals focused on technology demonstrations and presentations yesterday afternoon at KT Square in Gwanghwamun, Jongno-gu, Seoul.

Among the finalists, Mangrove developed a camera optimized for underwater 3D VR content production and showcased virtual scuba diving experiences and underwater performance content. Innertainment presented an interactive VR drama that allows elementary school students who have difficulty attending school to virtually experience school life, receiving recognition for proposing a role model for VR content that can be innovatively expanded in the edutech sector. Iruda introduced an immersive travel solution that uses 3D Geographic Information System (GIS) to teleport through spaces and take virtual trips to desired locations.

The startups selected in the final round will receive government support of up to 2.5 billion KRW, including 100 million KRW each in commercialization support funds, up to 400 million KRW in technology development funds, and up to 2 billion KRW in technology special guarantees. KT plans to commercialize the startups’ services through Super VR and promote multifaceted support and cooperation for practical business activation, including marketing and discovering new business models.

Kim Hoon-bae, Executive Vice President of KT’s Customer Business Division, said, “Immersive media is a field where new attempts and challenges that can break the existing common sense framework are necessary, so cooperation between large corporations and startups is more important than anything else,” adding, “We will continue to create opportunities and environments where companies from various fields can plan and present services together.”

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