The Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning of South Korea has come up with a proposal which would enable faculty members and students of South Korea’s leading tech universities to take a break from teaching and studying to set up their startup, reports MK Business News. As per the proposal, faculty members who have started up will be able to extend their break to 6 years at the longest and hold…

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SK Planet, part of South Korea’s biggest mobile operator SK Telecom announced the launch of its accelerator program ‘101 Startup Korea’ for early stage startups yesterday. The application period will last until August 16, followed by application screening and an interview round. Once the final participants are selected, the incubation program will start on September 2 and will continue until February 28, 2014. SK Planet, established in October 2011 as a wholly owned subsidiary of…

TIDE (which stands for Technology Imagination Design Entrepreneurship) Institute is a non-profit organization supporting entrepreneurship and tech-based startups in Korea. TIDE Institute has various initiatives and programs to encourage and support entrepreneurs. The four main initiatives of the TIDE Institute to encourage the spirit of entrepreneurship: TIDE Academy is a curriculum designed to encourage advanced, trailblazing startups. Some of the nation’s most inspiring speakers share their insights in cutting-edge technologies, global markets and design trends,…

Through the beSUCCESS Korea Startup and Technology Weekly Roundup, we bring you major articles and posts related to the Korean startup and technology sectors from beSUCCESS as well as other media websites. beSUCCESS: Current Cybersecurity Issues In Korea beSUCCESS – Infographic : Smartphone penetration rate in Korea VentureBeat: At 1-year anniversary, Korea’s Kakao mobile game platform hits 30M users and 400M game downloads More to Gangnam than Gangnam style, YoungEntrepreneur.com – Gangnam: The Silicon Valley of South…

Cyberattacks in Korea getting worse – a total of 67 targets came under attack A total of 67 targets including public offices and companies came under cyber attacks since June 25, said the Korean government on Thursday. The types of attacks are usually DDoS (distributed denial of service) and malicious codes that destruct hard disk drives. In total (so far!), 14 organizations lost their stored data on hard disks due to the…

Cybersecurity is one of the ‘hot issues’ and arguably one of the top priorities for the Korean financial industry. SMEs According to Judd Gregg, the CEO of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, the global trend for the past few years was the “increasing number of cyberattacks on smaller financial institutions and businesses [that do not have the defence resources of larger companies]”. Larger Companies Hackers are adapting and are becoming…

Founded in March, 2012, K-Cube Ventures made a big first step by investing in 6 startups within 4 months of its start. What do we need for a growing the Korean startup ecosystem? “This question, which we asked ourselves, created ‘K-Cube Ventures’. There were not many opportunities for the early stage companies in Korea. They needed ‘Money’ and ‘Practical experiences’ from other entrepreneurs who went through same difficulties. That’s how K-Cube Ventures…

Last Sunday, the South Korean Ministry of Justice announced the revision of the ‘Enforcement Decree of the Immigration Control Act’, which includes granting of startup visas to foreigners for better facilitation of foreign investment activities in Korea. It also aims to encourage international students in Korea to establish startups in the country. (Is Seoul going to be the next Silicon Valley?… Maybe, maybe.) I have looked at the proposed revisions to the…

Korea’s first museum dedicated to computers and gaming is set to open at the end of this month. It is called “Nexon Computer Museum” (NCM) and Nexon’s investment into the museum is estimated at KRW 15 billion (USD $13 million). For 10 years the Nexon chairman has been collecting these valuable items with an ambition and goal to build a computer museum in Korea. The museum is: 2,445 square meters big; and…

In this post, I have focused on the recent acquisitions in Korea that highlight both the growing importance of the South Korean mobile gaming market and the concentration of game development talent in the country. I hope that this serves as a useful survey of the mobile gaming landscape in Korea – the country with the one of the most prominent developers in the world and the largest and stable network (=backbone)…

We all know that the growth of mobile means the growth of mobile games. Korea is seeing a transition from online games to mobile games in 2013. In the second half of 2012, mobile games slowly overwhelmed online game. Approximately 61% of Korean smartphone users play games on their phone Smartphone users download an average of 26 apps. rise of KakaoTalk and LINE messenger services. the growth of LTE in Korea Prominent…

‘Good to grow? The environment for Asia’s Internet businesses’ is an Economist Intelligence Unit report commissioned by the Asia Internet Coalition. Its central question is why Asian-produced online content and platforms do not have greater worldwide audiences, given that Asia is the world’s largest and fastest growing Internet market. Based on interviews with more than 30 entrepreneurs and experts around the region, this report focuses on the internal and external factors that…

This Week’s Startup – DreamCosmo   DreamCosmo <Dreamallow>     Our Dream is to help your “Dreams Come True”- DreamCosmo “It was all started from my dream. My dream to help others’ dreams come true!” said Mr. Shin,  the founder of DreamCosmo. DreamCosmo’s first ever app service in public called “dreamallow” is now getting popular in Korea by providing various interesting tools to achieve users’ goals. Dreamallow presents challenge missions in various…

BootstrapAccelerator Asia, the joint-venture between Silicon Valley-based BootstrapLabs, and Malaysia-based MAD Incubator is opening its doors officially to the public July 3rd, 2013. It is the first Southeast Asia-focused Tech Startup Accelerator with a Silicon Valley Fast TrackTM program for its most promising candidates. First announced back in May of this year, BootstrapAccelerator focuses on early-stage capital efficient software startups that leverage the speed of Internet distribution and the scalability of cloud…

World’s fastest mobile network launched by South Korean telco, SKT SK Telecom, Korea’s biggest mobile carrier, launched world’s first LTE-Advanced network called LTE-A, with speeds twice as fast as the current existing service. LTE-A is also 10 times faster than the 3G network. This service will be available in Seoul and 42 other major cities and provinces in Korea, as well as in 103 universities. How is this in line with global…

The Joyful Frog Digital Incubator (JFDI.Asia) is currently accepting rolling applications from ambitious early stage Internet businesses to its regular acceleration programs. Purely on the basis of merit, strong teams from anywhere in the world will be offered a place on the next available program. Teams already in Singapore will be offered immediate access to seminars and workshops that will help them make the most of the opportunity. More than 280 teams…

Around 10 years ago, ITU said that “There are few recommendations that one can offer a country as advanced in ICT as Korea. Broadband penetration is the world’s highest.” –  and that still holds true today in 2013. 1. The Korean Telecom Market  South Korea has a driven telecom market dynamics. It has one of the fastest growth in smartphone numbers with around a 23 million increase in the span of 2…

Samsung Galaxy S4 Understands Korean Dialects?!  Samsung Galaxy S4 ‘s ‘S Voice Engine’, ‘S Translator’ and ‘S Voice Drive’ now allows for a more correct translation of Korean dialects. The South Korean conglomerate have been collecting data about different dialects around Korea (and mind you, they are remarkably different from standard Korean). Samsung Electronics have been continuously making developments in the voice technology area. S4 had a ‘non-touch’ concept that allows you…