Young Entrepreneurs from Across the Country Gather in Busan... Busan Startup Idea Competition Held

11 Finalist Teams Compete at Paradise Hotel Busan on the 29th at 1 PM

Grand Prize Includes Busan Mayor's Award and 5 Million KRW, Total Prize Money 16 Million KRW

Busan City Hall.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Kim Yong-woo] Busan City will hold the ‘7th Busan Startup Idea Competition’ at 1 p.m. on the 29th at Paradise Hotel Busan in Haeundae-gu.

Marking its seventh year, the Busan Startup Idea Competition will, as in the previous year, only allow teams that passed the non-face-to-face preliminary round to participate.

The competition will be broadcast live through the Busan Startup YouTube channel ‘BstarTV’.

This year, a total of 118 teams with about 360 participants applied from 14 cities and provinces. Through document screening, 50 teams were selected and the preliminary round was held via non-face-to-face video evaluation.

A total of 11 teams advanced to the finals, including 9 university teams and 2 high school teams.

Busan City provided mentoring support from senior startup companies to the 11 teams preparing for the finals to help them strengthen their startup capabilities and address any shortcomings.

One grand prize team will receive the Busan Mayor’s Award and a prize of 5 million KRW; three teams will receive the excellence award with 2 million KRW each and certificates; three teams will receive the merit award with 1 million KRW each and certificates; and four teams will receive the encouragement award with 500,000 KRW each and certificates.

Additionally, all 11 finalist teams will be given the opportunity to participate in the city-led preliminary and early-stage startup nurturing programs, and extra points will be awarded for participation in Busan City’s technology startup incubating projects.

Students from the University of Seoul who won the excellence award in last year’s competition were selected as preliminary startup companies by Busan City this year and established the startup company ‘Tread & Groove’ in Busan.

They are expected to achieve sales of about 50 million KRW this year and have plans for additional hiring. They are also participating in various fashion and design exhibitions, growing into a promising successful company.

Park Hyung-joon, Mayor of Busan, introduced, “Tread & Groove is a startup company discovered and nurtured by the Busan Startup Idea Competition, symbolizing the vision that the competition should pursue.”

Mayor Park said, “We will spare no effort to support various initiatives so that young people’s creative ideas do not go to waste but lead to startups, and so that many cases of young people starting businesses in Busan, reversing the trend from the metropolitan area, can be created.”

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