SMEs ministry selects 10,000 for second round of start-up project

The SMEs ministry said Friday it has selected 10,000 applicants for the first round of the second edition of its Everyone's Start-up project, drawn from a pool of more than 93,000 challengers.

The selection covers 8,000 places on the general and technology tracks and 2,000 on the local track, double the 5,000 offered in the first edition. Competition ran at 9.3 applicants per place.

Repeat challengers made up 40.4 percent of those advancing. Applicants aged 39 or younger accounted for 65.3 percent of the selected group, and 74.0 percent came from outside the Seoul metropolitan area.

By sector, IT took 28 percent of the general and technology selections, followed by lifestyle at 19 percent and education at 10 percent, while the local track was led by living services at 49 percent and food and beverage at 39 percent.

Incheon National University, which runs the general and technology track, said proposals that sincerely explained why the applicant wanted to solve a problem stood out over finished business plans. The Jeonbuk Center for Creative Economy and Innovation, which runs the local track, said retry applicants had actively incorporated earlier evaluations and mentoring comments, and that it would help them refine market validation, revenue models and sales strategies so the ideas lead to real businesses in the regions.

The 10,000 selected applicants begin their start-up activities at launch ceremonies in all 17 provinces and major cities on Oct. 20. All will receive 2 million won ($1,483) in start-up activity funds, along with early-stage mentoring from the operating organizations and artificial intelligence tools to help them refine their ideas quickly.

The more than 83,000 applicants who were not chosen will be offered offline retry mentoring from Oct. 26 to Dec. 14.

"Meeting the many ideas people bring to problems in their daily lives while selecting 10,000 innovative talents, and seeing how many came back with better ideas after the disappointment of the first round, made me realize that a start-up culture in which failure becomes experience is taking hold," said Cho Kyung-won, the ministry's start-up policy director. "The government will back these 10,000 challenges so they lead to actual companies and growth."