Culture Data Utilization Contest Until the 31st of Next Month

Discovering Services and Ideas Using Cultural Data
Supporting Innovative Growth of Startup Companies, Deriving New Perspectives

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Culture Information Service are holding a cultural data utilization contest until the 31st of next month. Cultural data refers to data in the fields of performances, exhibitions, books, movies, cultural heritage, and content, which are opened through the Cultural Public Data Plaza and the Cultural Big Data Platform. The Ministry aims to discover related services and ideas to support the innovative growth of startup companies and to derive new perspectives on socio-cultural issues.

Until last year, 2,344 utilization cases have been discovered. Some have received follow-up support for commercialization and market development. A representative example is "Wello," a personalized policy recommendation and application service. It won an excellence award at the Government-wide Public Data Utilization Startup Contest and was selected for the technology startup investment program TIPS. "Fieldshare," a user-customized sports facility and lesson service, and "Iyusocial Cooperative," a wheelchair user-customized travel destination and route recommendation platform, also received support for commercialization and attracted investments worth approximately 1.8 billion KRW each.

This year, the contest is divided into three categories: product/service development, idea planning, and data analysis. In the newly established data analysis category, proposals are sought that analyze cultural leisure and Hallyu-related issues from various perspectives using cultural data and derive results. Analysis topics include tourist travel routes, citizens' cultural leisure activities on weekdays and weekends, and other issues in the fields of culture, sports, and tourism. A Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism official stated, "We plan to use excellent analysis cases and proposals as reference materials for policy promotion."

The Ministry will select fourteen award-winning works. Winners will receive certificates and prize money totaling 42.5 million KRW. The grand prize teams in product/service development and idea planning will also be granted the right to advance to the finals of the Government-wide Public Data Utilization Startup Contest. For application and detailed information, please refer to the Cultural Public Data Plaza website.