[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyewon] The comprehensive startup expo 'NextRise 2021, Seoul,' jointly hosted by the Korea International Trade Association and KDB Industrial Bank, will open on the 28th at COEX in Samseong-dong.
At the opening ceremony held in the afternoon, Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum, Trade Association Chairman Koo Ja-yeol, Industrial Bank President Lee Dong-geol, and Financial Services Commission Vice Chairman Do Kyu-sang will attend to celebrate the event's opening and hold a venture industry meeting to communicate with participating companies.
The event, held over two days from the 28th to the 29th, will feature 116 domestic and international large and medium-sized enterprises, 42 venture investment firms, and 673 startups participating in online and offline business meetups. In the offline exhibition space, 251 startups, 8 large corporations, and about 10 universities and foreign embassies in Korea will participate to explore cooperation with domestic startups.
This year, many companies and overseas startups such as POSCO, BMW, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Mercedes-Benz, and DB Schenker are also participating. POSCO will introduce collaboration activities with startups nurtured through its venture platform at the corporate pavilion.
Julian Klaus, manager in charge of BMW's Korea Tech Office, said, "At NextRise, we are meeting Korean startups with high technological levels and completeness in various fields," adding, "BMW plans to begin full-scale open innovation with Korean tech startups from the second half of this year."
During the event, the online and offline global conference will feature about 110 domestic and international experts in fields such as ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance), artificial intelligence, mobility, and open innovation, conducting a total of 102 sessions. On the first day, Professor Dennis Hong from UCLA, Jen Carter from Google, and Baek Sang-yeop, CEO of Kakao Enterprise, will take the stage, while on the second day, Lee Jae-hyun, head of Asia Investment at Goldman Sachs, Park Ji-won, CEO of HYBE, and Lee Seung-gyu, Vice President of SmartStudy, will participate.
Workshops for startups will also be held. Seonghyun Hwang, CEO of Quantum Insight, who previously served as an HR executive at Google and Kakao, will conduct an OKR (Objective & Key Results) workshop in the morning of the first day, using a performance management tool verified in Silicon Valley. Microsoft, Unity, and others will also hold technology strategy workshops for domestic companies. Recruitment briefings aimed at expanding youth employment and resolving startup labor shortages will also be provided.
Park Pil-jae, head of the Startup Global Support Office at the Trade Association, said, "Based on NextRise, we will further strengthen business connections with global companies such as Fortune 500 companies and spare no support for the global scale-up of our startups."
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