Working with companies in Pangyo, to play the role as a platform for entering the U.S. market
MOU with Naver Happybean
On November 20, the ‘Global Startup Innovation Center’ was set up in the second Pangyo Techno Valley to support entrepreneurship in partnership with the local community and to target overseas markets. The center will train entrepreneurs on how to make pilot products and also provide assistance for tax accounting, an essential part of managing businesses, in addition to offering support for promoting and marketing products. The center also plans to actively host events for building networks to start businesses to contribute to forming a culture of active cooperation with influential companies.
The Global Startup Innovation Center is located at suite 165 of the Enterprise Support Hub at the second Pangyo Techno Valley. The 360.15㎡ space will offer users offices, meeting rooms and lecture rooms. The opening ceremony was attended by Dankook University President, Soo-bok Kim, Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, Jin-woo Eo, Executive Vice President for External Affairs, Soon-cheol An, and Vice President for Industry-Academia Cooperation, Kyoung-hoan Na, 30 students from the Family Business·Startup student club, CEO of Naver Happybean, Inhyeok Choi, Vice President of the Lotte Future & Strategy Center, Gwang-cheol Shin, and Seong-min Ahn of the Korea Productivity Center.
“Instead of universities and the business field offering education on entrepreneurship separately, we set up the Startup Innovation Center off university grounds to build a cluster for startups and industry-academia partnerships that build synergy between local communities and businesses,” explained DKU President, Soo-bok Kim, who also shared hopes of “carry[ing] out various projects, including support for corporate IR, developing sales routes, building platforms for technology transfers, and attracting corporate subsidiaries.”
Dankook University plans to leverage the Global Startup Innovation Center as a base for entering the U.S. market (research, product development, market testing, and attracting investments). Therefore, there are also plans to build global startup platforms together with KOTRA centers in San Jose and Dallas.
Following the opening ceremony, an MOU was signed with ‘Happybean,’ Naver’s donation portal, to pursue social and public value by developing startups and social enterprises, implementing joint programs to support such companies and to carry out education programs for fostering and utilizing talent.