The 9th Busan Startup Idea Competition Held ... Total Prize Money 13.8 Million Won

Participant Recruitment Until September 15... Total 10 Teams Including 7 University Teams and 3 High School Teams to be Awarded

Busan City Hosts Startup Idea Competition in 7 Strategic Industries and Innovative Technology Fields

The Startup Idea Competition will be held under the slogan "Start UP! Idea UP!".

Poster for the 9th Busan Startup Idea Competition.

Busan City is hosting the 9th Busan Startup Idea Competition and is recruiting participants from the 23rd until September 15th.

This competition is designed to discover challenging startup ideas from university students nationwide and high school students in the Busan, Ulsan, and Gyeongnam (Bu-Ul-Gyeong) regions, and to spread the local startup culture.

The event is a representative introductory startup event in Busan that helps students dreaming of entrepreneurship to concretize their brilliant ideas into business models and provides startup opportunities through this process.

Busan City is the organizer, with the Busan Economic Promotion Agency, Busan National University, Busan Catholic University, and Dongseo University co-hosting.

This year’s competition will focus on startup ideas related to Busan City’s seven strategic industries and innovation technology sectors.

Through document screening, 30 teams will be selected for the preliminary round. Then, practical pitching (idea presentation) training will be conducted, and 10 teams will be chosen for the final round through preliminary judging. Afterward, teams will undergo idea refinement and final review mentoring programs, with the final winners decided at the final competition on October 25th.

A total of 10 teams will be awarded, including 7 teams from the university division and 3 teams from the high school division, with total prize money of 13.8 million KRW.

The competition is open to all university students nationwide and high school students in the Bu-Ul-Gyeong region who have startup ideas. Teams of 2 to 4 members can apply through the Busan Startup Portal by September 15th.

This year marks the 9th Busan Startup Idea Competition since its inception in 2015.

Up to the 8th competition, a total of 618 teams (2,426 students) participated. Last year, the team "Cron," a collaboration of Korea Maritime and Ocean University, Pukyong National University, and Sungkyunkwan University, won the grand prize with their startup idea "Smart Medical Waste Management System."

This year’s competition features separate judging for the high school and university divisions and expands the high school participant region from just Busan to the entire Bu-Ul-Gyeong area, aiming to increase the previously low participation rate of high school students.

The mentoring program for teams advancing to the final round will also be customized based on prior demand surveys by field, ensuring a more substantial and well-organized competition.

Son Seong-eun, the city’s Financial Startup Policy Officer, stated, “Through this Startup Idea Competition, we plan to discover promising entrepreneurs who will lead Korea’s future in the Asian startup city of Busan and spread the local startup culture.” He added, “We look forward to many teams with innovative ideas participating in this year’s competition.”

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