Supporting Growth of 11 Youth Startups Through Online and Offline Counseling-Based Youth Policy Linkage
[Asia Economy Reporter Jongil Park] Gangdong-gu (Mayor Lee Jeong-hoon) will open the 'Gangdong Youth work-play Town' (hereinafter ‘Youth Town’), a youth startup residence space, and the Seoul Youth Center Gangdong ‘Orang’ (hereinafter ‘Gangdong Orang’), a comprehensive youth policy support center, on the 4th floor of 796 Olympic-ro, Gangdong-gu, at 3 p.m. on the 21st.
This space is located in the Amsa Station area, a transit hub in the Amsa-Cheonho region where about 40% of Gangdong-gu’s youth are concentrated, thus expected to play a significant role as a youth hub space.
The currently established space has a net area of approximately 403㎡ (122 pyeong). Since October last year, Gangdong-gu has designed the space reflecting advice from an urban landscape chief planner and opinions from local youth, and the interior construction has been completed. The space consists of five independent units, six single-person open startup spaces, a co-working zone open to anyone, meeting rooms for meetings, education, and counseling, a shared caf? for comfortable conversations, and an operations office.
The center’s operating hours are from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. on weekdays and from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturdays, closed on Sundays and public holidays.
The ‘Youth Town’ supports startups less than five years old that face difficulties securing office space due to lack of funds, enabling them to focus on stable entrepreneurship by providing residence spaces.
Additionally, it plans to provide mentoring and education tailored to help companies in their 3rd to 5th years overcome the startup “death valley” period.
At the opening ceremony on the 21st, agreements will be signed with 10 resident companies, as well as business agreements with Konkuk University Startup Support Group and the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Job Promotion for ‘Gangdong Startup Joint Cultivation’ and ‘Activation of Technology Startups and Regional Industrial Development in Gangdong-gu,’ respectively.
‘Gangdong Orang’ is a southeastern Seoul youth center covering Gangdong, Gangnam, and Songpa districts, and is the first comprehensive youth policy support platform to open in a Seoul autonomous district. Youth support managers stationed at ‘Gangdong Orang’ will identify individual youth situations and needs through online and offline counseling, connect youth policy resources, collect and discover scattered youth-related information, and actively support youth’s emotional and social independence by implementing projects necessary for their social entry process.
Lee Jeong-hoon, Mayor of Gangdong-gu, said, “We expect that ‘Gangdong Youth work-play Town’ and ‘Seoul Youth Center Gangdong Orang,’ sharing one roof like two families, will maximize space utilization and create synergy in promoting projects for youth social independence.” He added, “Furthermore, by establishing a public-private-academic cooperation system, we plan to foster more competitive Gangdong-type youth companies and contribute to creating an environment where youth startups can thrive in the Fourth Industrial Revolution era.”
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