Yangcheon-gu Youth Digital Supporters Launch: Amazing Results After 2 Months?

Supporting Small Business Digital Transformation by Discovering Youth Digital Skills through Local Job Projects... Promoting Regional Coexistence with Various Digital Transition Supports over Two Months Since Launch in October

[Asia Economy Reporter Jongil Park] “This year, my business was struggling due to COVID-19, so I switched to making dumplings, but I had no idea how to promote them. Fortunately, the district office had a program where young people came to help with online promotion and sales, so I applied. Now, our dumplings are being ordered nationwide through online stores. I never would have thought of this without the youth supporters.” (Sinjeong 4-dong, Hongbongja Cheese Gulrim Dumplings)

“I run a delivery-only pizza shop, and with my busy daily schedule, I couldn’t pay attention to managing SNS or the website. Since I’m not familiar with using the internet, even simple edits were difficult, and I wondered if I should pay a company to handle it. But local young people came, updated everything with the latest information, and taught me well, which was really great.” (Sinwol 3-dong, Kkomangse Pizza)

Yangcheon-gu (District Mayor Kim Sooyoung) launched the nation’s first 'Youth Digital Supporters' project in October to support the digital transformation of small business owners. Every time social distancing levels increased due to COVID-19, small business owners in local neighborhoods suffered significant damage, but they had no effective way to increase walk-in customers, making delivery and takeout sales essential.

The district focused on two strengths of young people: ‘online consumer experience and appropriate digital technology’ to find ways to support small business owners. The ‘Digital Supporters’ is a youth project team in Yangcheon-gu that helps local small business owners build a digital economic environment. They formed a team of 19 young supporters to utilize the digital skills of youth, who easily handle online tools via the internet and smartphones, to open new paths for local small businesses.

From October, they supported digital marketing for 28 local businesses over about two months.

The supporters carried out various digital marketing activities such as renewing and updating online menus, creating and posting web posters and card news, supporting a total of 264 posts.

The posts they supported have accumulated about 2,000 views and are spreading widely.

For business owners wishing to sell products online, they assisted with telecommunications sales registration and opening Naver Smart Store accounts, enabling seven stores to open online stores and sell products.

Additionally, customized support was provided according to each store’s characteristics. For pie and tart shops that need to sell daily inventory, they installed the Last Order app to help with discounted sales of leftover stock. For noodle shops wanting to produce meal kits, they provided comparative analysis data on specialized meal kit manufacturers. They also produced and uploaded promotional videos guiding customers on how to find the stores.

For businesses lacking electronic payment systems, they helped establish systems like Zero Pay and Kakao Pay, and for food packaging sales businesses, they assisted with installing Naver Smart Order, a packaging order and pickup system.

By leveraging the active experiences and capabilities of young people to revitalize local commercial districts, business owners’ satisfaction and responses were enthusiastic. However, a self-survey on small business owners’ awareness and status of digital transformation showed that while they clearly recognized and intended to transition digitally, their preparation was insufficient and they demanded various policy supports.

The youth who worked as supporters also expressed a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction. “At first, I participated for economic reasons, but through professional training, I strengthened my own digital skills and took the initiative in planning tasks, which was very rewarding to help struggling neighborhood shops. Especially, every time I saw the owners smile, I felt something warm deep inside.” “The experience as a digital supporter will be a great asset for preparing for future employment or entrepreneurship,” they shared.

Based on two months of activities, Yangcheon-gu plans to continuously develop the digital supporters program. On December 21, they signed a business agreement with Honeybiz, a delivery company participating in the Seoul Zero Delivery Union, and Table Manager, a startup developing digital reservation systems. Going forward, they will work with digital supporters to promote digital system adoption in the region.

Kim Sooyoung, Mayor of Yangcheon-gu, said, “In this era of industrial change due to COVID-19, digital inclusion and innovation cases where digital spaces are equally open to everyone must accumulate to respond to the future. As digital transformation accelerates due to COVID-19, we aim to realize coexistence among youth, small business owners, and residents by utilizing young people’s experiences and capabilities. I hope we can continue to move forward as a leading autonomous district in the Digital New Deal through new challenges and experiments.”

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