"ICT Challenge 2021" Startup Challenge Begins Tomorrow... Total Prize Money 53 Million Won

[Asia Economy Reporter Joeslgina] The Ministry of Science and ICT will hold the ‘ICT Challenge 2021’ starting from the 28th to inspire entrepreneurship among graduate students participating in ICT talent development projects and provide startup opportunities.

According to the Ministry of Science and ICT on the 27th, under the theme ‘Challenge for ICT Start-up!’, students participating in ICT master’s and doctoral talent development projects such as ‘University ICT Research Centers’ and ‘Grand ICT Research Centers’ from 39 universities nationwide will implement startup ideas utilizing their research and development achievements. Non-participating students can also join if they form a team with master’s or doctoral students involved in these projects.

Starting with team registration on the 28th, the event will proceed in the order of orientation (August), team activities (August to September), online preliminaries (September), and finals (October), where teams compete.

In particular, during the team activities (scheduled for August to September) to develop and concretize students’ startup ideas, current engineers from NHN will provide mentoring to the students. Lectures and discussions by famous entrepreneurs will also take place.

The top 10 teams selected will receive certificates and prize money that can be used as commercialization funds. The first place will receive 12 million KRW, second and third places 7 million KRW each, fourth to sixth places 5 million KRW each, and seventh to tenth places 3 million KRW each.

The Ministry of Science and ICT will support follow-up commercialization and research and development for ideas implemented in the competition by linking them with student creative autonomous projects (around 10 million KRW per project) within the talent development program and government support projects. Finalist teams will receive additional points when participating in the ‘ICT Startup Mentoring Project’ and the ‘K-Global Startup Contest’. Lee Seungwon, Director of the Information and Communication Industry Policy Bureau at the Ministry of Science and ICT, stated, “Through ICT Challenge 2021, we will generously support students so that the ICT research achievements they have devoted themselves to can bear fruit as technology startups and lead to the success of the Digital New Deal.”

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