ICT Companies' Overseas Expansion Support 'K-Global' Held Online

Over 7,000 Participants in US and China Events, 533 Export Consultations Conducted

[Asia Economy Reporter Han Jinju] The Ministry of Science and ICT announced on the 8th that it held the 'K-Global@ 2020' event online to support domestic ICT companies' entry into the US and Chinese markets.

'K-Global@ 2020' is an event that supports promising ICT companies' overseas expansion through online exhibitions, export consultation meetings, ICT innovation forums, and startup pitching competitions. Since 2012, it has been held in collaboration with the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA), the National IT Industry Promotion Agency (NIPA), and others. This year, due to the spread of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), the events in China (November 4-5) and the US (December 1-4) were held online.

This year's event, themed 'ICT Business and Artificial Intelligence (AI) Industry in the Post-COVID Era,' was attended by about 7,000 participants including businesspeople, overseas buyers, investors, and general attendees.

Among domestic ICT companies, 82 companies (48 in the US, 34 in China) participated in fields such as artificial intelligence, big data, cloud, virtual and augmented reality (VR·AR), and the Internet of Things. Global renowned ICT companies such as Facebook, Amazon, Tencent, and China Telecom participated as overseas investors in the export consultation meetings. A total of 533 export consultations were conducted through matching with global companies.

In the pitching competition (K-Pitch), 28 domestic companies participated to showcase their technologies and services. Judging was conducted in real-time both locally overseas and online. In China, the ‘Wayne Hills Ventures’ team, which presented technology that automatically converts text into video, won the competition, while in the US, the ‘DoubleMe’ team, which presented deep learning-based 3D video shooting and sharing technology, took first place. The winning teams received the Minister of Science and ICT Award and a prize of 10 million won.

At the International Pitch competition held in the US, 10 startup teams from 7 countries participated, and among them, the ‘H2O Hospitality’ team, which ranked second in K-Pitch, won first place. This team received excellent evaluations for presenting digital hospitality industry operation and management services. The DoubleMe team, which ranked first in K-Pitch, took third place.

Gwak Byungjin, Director of the Information and Communications Industry Infrastructure Division at the Ministry of Science and ICT, said, "This event is significant in that it opened a path to overcome the contraction of overseas export and investment attraction caused by COVID-19," and added, "We will continue to make multifaceted efforts to expand opportunities for ICT companies' overseas business cooperation."