KITA hosted “NextRise 2022 Seoul” with an emphasis on innovation

Participants include 175 conglomerates and investment companies and more than 1,000 start-ups

“NextRise 2022 Seoul” kicked off on June 16 at COEX in Samseong-dong, which is an event co-hosted by the Korea International Trade Association and Korea Development Bank (KDB). Key figures, including Gwan-seup Lee, the Vice Chairman of KITA, Seok-hoon Gang, the Chairman of KDB, So-young Kim, the Vice Chairperson of Financial Services Commission, Seung-kon Lee, the CEO of Viva Republica, Se-young Jang, the CEO of DeepBrainAI, attended the opening ceremony.

Vice President Lee remarked, “The ecosystems for innovation are going beyond regional boundaries and are being interconnected and expanded” and added, “Innovative technologies are breaking down the silos among businesses of our industry and business sectors, and such technologies are becoming key factors that determine the fate of companies.” He stressed, “A failure to aggressively embrace and lead innovation in exchange for avoiding minor risks can result in missing out on seizing promising opportunities.”

NextRise Seoul 2022 is a two-day event, which will be held until June 17. It will offer a wide range of events, including one-on-one meet-ups between businesses, conference sessions led by prominent figures from home and abroad, an exhibition of innovative technologies developed by start-ups, a hiring fair led by 60 companies, including unicorn companies and start-ups, technology workshop sessions conducted by Google and Abode and pitching sessions.

175 globally renown conglomerates and investment companies, including Volkswagen, Pepsi, Airbus and Meta, participated in the one-on-one meet-up event, which resulted in more than 2,000 meetings for potential business collaboration and investment consultations with more than 1,000 start-ups.

In the afternoon of the first day of NextRise Seoul 2022, KITA, Seoul Business Agency (SBA), London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) and Catapult from the UK signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to create a smart city testbed. This MOU will also serve as a foundation for cooperation to a) support the first batch of ten start-ups to perform proof-of-concept in the UK, b) dispatch delegation composed of members from the start-up sector and c) open an exhibition in the UK from the second half of this year.

In the afternoon on June 17, Prime Minister Deok-soo Han, Christopher Koo, the Chairman of KITA, Seok-hyeon Gang, the CEO of KDB and Young Lee, the Minister of SMEs and Start-ups are scheduled to pay a visit to NextRise Seoul 2022 event and have a meeting with a dozen CEOs from start-ups. Seok-min Jang, the Head of the Digital Innovation Group at KITA mentioned, “By utilizing NextRise as a platform, we are committed to providing a wide range of assistance for Korean start-ups to upgrade their global competitiveness by supporting successful proof of concept presentations and open innovation.”