Successful Hosting of Seongbuk-gu Youth Social Venture Innovation Competition

‘Seongbuk-gu 2023 Youth Social Venture Innovation Competition’ Held to Foster Young Social Entrepreneurs

Innovative Projects Presented Including Customized Professional Psychological Counselor Recommendation Service and AI-Based Jeonse Fraud Prevention Service

One Grand Prize, One Excellence Award, Two Merit Awards, and Two Encouragement Awards Selected... Total of 58 Million KRW in Business Development Funds Supported for Six Final Teams

Office Rent Support of 250,000 KRW per Month for Six Months Also Provided

Seongbuk-gu (Mayor Lee Seung-ro) held the ‘2023 Seongbuk-gu Youth Social Venture Innovation Competition’ on the 20th at Seongbuk Art Hall in Seongbuk-gu Office to foster young social entrepreneurs who will creatively and innovatively solve local community problems.

The ‘Seongbuk-gu Youth Social Venture Innovation Competition’ marked its fourth year this year. From March 7 to April 7, a total of 13 teams applied to participate.

The district selected eight teams to advance to the finals through the first document screening. From April 22 to May 6, three sessions of pre-education and mentoring were conducted every Saturday for the finalist teams, covering topics such as understanding the social economy and social venture startups.

After the on-site final competition and judging, six teams were honored with awards.

The six final award-winning teams are expected to receive a total of 58 million KRW in business development funds. The awards are distributed as follows: ▲Grand Prize 15 million KRW, ▲Excellence Award 13 million KRW, ▲Merit Award 9 million KRW (two teams), and ▲Encouragement Award 6 million KRW (two teams). Additionally, some award-winning teams receive office rent support of up to 250,000 KRW per month for six months.

The Grand Prize winner, ‘Ttodak Ttodak’ (CEO Jung San), introduced ‘MIND ME,’ a personalized professional psychological counselor recommendation service. ‘MIND ME’ is a service for people who want psychological counseling due to mental difficulties such as depression but find it hard to choose an appropriate counselor due to lack of reviews and information. It is a matching platform that recommends personalized psychological counselors by providing career details and reliable reviews about professional psychological counselors.

The Excellence Award went to Darimaker Co., Ltd. (CEO Kang Ho-san). This team introduced a question communication kit development project that enables fun and sustainable communication and dialogue between parents and children, based on statistics showing that the average daily conversation time between parents and children is 13 minutes and that conflicts at home can affect children’s happiness.

The Merit Awards were given to ‘Dowajwo Jipsa’ (CEO Choi Jin-ho) for their AI-based Jeonse fraud prevention and property verification service, and ‘Unipers’ (CEO Jung Ha-jin) for ‘NETY,’ a productive meeting formation platform for university students.

The Encouragement Awards were awarded to BiHappy Co., Ltd. (CEO Lee Do-kyung) for their solution promoting healthy financial habits among youth and collaboration with financial institutions, and to NADA (CEO Lee Jin-ah) for ‘myspec,’ a blockchain-based resume badge for job-seeking youth.

Lee Seung-ro, Mayor of Seongbuk-gu, said, “Through this competition, we were able to see various ways to solve social problems with young people’s fresh ideas. I hope they grow into young social entrepreneurs who lead the spread of social value and the revitalization of the social economy.” He added, “Seongbuk-gu will also strive to provide various opportunities for young people’s passion to be demonstrated in the social economy sector and to reflect the voices of youth in the field.”