The Ministry of SMEs and Startups (Minister LEE Young; hereinafter "MSS") held the 'Young Tech Startup Grand Challenge' pitching competition targeting startups in Southeast Asia at the National Convention Center (NCC) in Hanoi, Vietnam on June 22 (local time).
 
This competition was organized as part of efforts to attract to Korea and support young and outstanding startup talents from Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries, with the aim of creating the best startup business hub in Asia.
 
In particular, Vietnam is a country where many talents seek to start businesses in Korea, and it ranked first among the foreign applicants in this year's 'K-Startup Grand Challenge,' an international startup competition held annually in Korea, with 348 out of the total 1,924 applications.
 
A total of 20 teams participated in this competition through pre-registration, consisting of startups from Southeast Asian countries with a track record of less than 7 years in the fields of artificial intelligence, blockchain, edutech, and other emerging industries and technologies.
 
Based on the evaluation of the judging panel composed of 7 domestic venture capitalists, Digicon (Vietnam, AI-based short video production platform) took the prestigious first place, followed by N&E INNOVATIONS (Singapore, food waste recycling and sterilization technology development) in second place, and MLTech Soft (Vietnam, AI-based consumer goods inventory management platform) in third place.
 
The winning teams were awarded the qualification to advance to the main round of the '2023 K-Startup Grand Challenge.' In August, they will come to Korea and receive support such as nurturing by domestic startup planners, settlement funds, and visa acquisition at Pangyo Startup Campus. They will then compete for a total prize money of 340 million won (270,000 dollars) given to the top 5 teams at the presentation competition in November, where 63 teams from around the world will participate.
 
Minister LEE Young stated at the award ceremony, "Choosing South Korea as the country to start a business in the era of the digital economy is the best decision." She also expressed that the Korean government will actively support the establishment of 'Startup Korea,' a country where startups become the driving force of economic growth, and that it will actively support outstanding talents from around the world to start businesses in Korea and collaborate with domestic companies.
 
Meanwhile, President Yoon Suk Yeol attended the event on this day and encouraged the winners and other Southeast Asian startups.