L'Or?al and Eco-Friendly Packaging Materials, SKT Select Key Players to Collaborate on Future Integrated Transportation System Development
[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Cheol-hyun] Startup problem solvers are emerging one after another to address the challenges faced by large corporations. L'Or?al met with startups developing eco-friendly packaging materials, and SK Telecom connected with startups to collaborate on future integrated transportation systems.
The Ministry of SMEs and Startups (Minister Park Young-sun, hereafter MSS) announced on the 18th that it held the final selection competitions for L'Or?al Korea's eco-friendly secondary packaging material for cosmetics and SK Telecom's T-map-based integrated transportation system contest as the first phase of the 'Large Corporation-Startup Problem Solver Platform.' The Large Corporation-Startup Problem Solver Platform is a win-win cooperation policy that connects large corporations and startups to jointly solve each other's problems and complement their different capabilities. This inaugural contest attracted significant interest, with 9 large corporations and 208 startups participating. The finals, which began on the 16th with KT, will continue until the 26th across 8 different tasks, involving a total of 43 startups.
SK Telecom presented 'Integrated Transportation System Development' as a task and recently announced plans for a full-scale business expansion in the mobility sector based on its navigation system T-map, aiming to establish a specialized mobility company. Accordingly, 19 startups participated in the integrated transportation system task, which efficiently connects various modes of transportation, and 5 companies that passed both stages of evaluation advanced to the finals.
Among them, SuperMove implemented future services on the 3D virtual city platform provided by Dassault Syst?mes, offering optimal routes based on user preferences that connect not only public transportation such as buses, subways, and taxis but also newly emerging shared bicycles, single-person electric vehicles, carpooling services, and shuttle buses, earning high marks. WeMeet operates an application called 'We Meet Place,' nicknamed the appointment platform, which analyzes multi-person travel routes using the 'Isochrone algorithm' to recommend reasonable meeting locations. By incorporating game elements, it demonstrated the potential to provide an attractive integrated mobility service to the younger generation known as Generation Z, leading to its selection.
L'Or?al Korea set the task of 'Developing Eco-Friendly Secondary Packaging Materials for Cosmetics' with the goal of using 100% recycled or eco-friendly materials for product packaging by 2030. The objective is to develop eco-friendly materials that can replace plastics used in secondary packaging for cosmetics, meeting all criteria of transparency, flexibility, and biodegradability while ensuring economic feasibility through reasonable production costs. Four startups presented packaging manufacturing technologies using different natural materials in the finals.
The participating companies showcased various ideas complementing widely used polyethylene and biodegradable polybutylene adipate terephthalate, including biomass plastics made from natural materials such as grains like corn, rice, and wheat, crustaceans, and seaweed. However, due to time constraints, it was difficult to determine a clear winner, so the final winner will be announced next week after additional verification and discussions by the judging panel.
The startups selected in the final round will be awarded at the performance sharing event held on the 1st of next month at Sejong Hall, Sejong Center for the Performing Arts, and will receive up to 2.5 billion KRW in government support, including commercialization funding (100 million KRW), technology development (up to 400 million KRW), and technology special guarantee (up to 2 billion KRW). They will also gain opportunities to pursue joint projects with large corporations and expand globally using overseas networks.
Cha Jung-hoon, Director of the Startup Venture Innovation Office at MSS, stated, "To respond to rapidly changing society such as the major transition to a digital economy, it is essential to complement each other's lacking capabilities, such as capital from large corporations and technology from startups." He added, "MSS will actively support the expansion of the new win-win cooperation policy, the Large Corporation-Startup Problem Solver Platform, so that large corporations and startups can jointly solve their problems."
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