Exchange of Youth Startup Policies with Nordic Startup Powerhouse Finland
Scale-up TIPS 2nd Meetup in the USA
The Ministry of SMEs and Startups is accelerating efforts to nurture startups that will thrive in the global market, including in Northern Europe and North America.
The Ministry announced that Minister Lee Young visited the Aalto University Startup Center in Finland and held discussions with the SLUSH management team on the 20th (local time) to discuss support plans for startup policies and youth entrepreneurship exchanges between the two countries. SLUSH is the largest startup conference in Europe held annually in Helsinki, where startups from around the world interact through pitch competitions and one-on-one consultations with venture capitalists.
Minister Lee met with Janne Laine, Vice President of Aalto University, and Eerika Savolainen, CEO of SLUSH, to review Finland’s world-class startup ecosystem and entrepreneurial spirit policies. They also agreed to establish a mutual foundation for startup cooperation.
Minister Lee Young of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups (far left) visited the Aalto University Startup Center in Finland on the 20th and held a meeting with Aalto University officials, including Vice President Janne Laine (far right), to discuss bilateral startup policies and support measures for youth startup exchange.
During this visit, Minister Lee promoted Korea’s representative startup festival 'COMEUP', the 'K-Startup Grand Challenge' for foreign startups wishing to settle in Korea, and the startup ecosystem beyond physical space, 'K-Starverse', asking for the interest and participation of Finnish startups.
Minister Lee said, “It was beneficial to learn a lot about Finland’s entrepreneurial spirit and ecosystem, which designate a ‘Day of Failure’ to accept failure and encourage challenges,” adding, “We will spare no effort to support communication and exchange between young entrepreneurs of both countries.”
From the 20th to the 22nd, the Ministry will also hold the 'Scale-up TIPS 2nd Meetup Event' in Boston and New York, USA. This event follows the first meetup held in Boston last April and is prepared by the Korea Scale-up TIPS Association, the Scale-up TIPS operators’ association, together with the Korean Innovative Technology Entrepreneurs Association in the USA (KITEE) and KAIST Technology Value Creation Center, which signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on technology commercialization.
Thirteen promising deep-tech companies, including 'Medisapiens', which signed Korea’s first MOU to establish a joint venture with a U.S. hospital, and 'Cellkey', which has been selected as one of the top 20 biotech companies in the U.S., will participate in this event. The Ministry plans to connect domestic deep-tech innovative ventures with North American R&D collaboration demands through this meetup and reflect these in strategic technology theme project planning starting next year.
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