Ger­man Dele­ga­ti­on of the Digi­tal Hub Initia­ti­ve visits South Korea

140 years of Ger­man-South Kore­an rela­ti­onship - to mark the occa­si­on, a four-day eco­sys­tem trip to South Korea was orga­nis­ed by the Digi­tal Hub Initia­ti­ve of the Fede­ral Minis­try of Eco­no­mic Affairs and Cli­ma­te Action (BMWK). Six Digi­tal Hubs were pre­sent, inclu­ding ATHE­NE Digi­tal Hub Cyber­se­cu­ri­ty, the Digi­tal Hub in Darm­stadt for appli­ed cyber­se­cu­ri­ty, Digi­tal Hub Logi­stics Ham­burg, Insur­Lab Ger­ma­ny in Colo­gne mit Fokus which is actively com­mit­ted to the digi­ti­sa­ti­on of the insu­rance indus­try, the Ber­lin based Digi­tal Hub IoT+ Net­work with a focus on the two topics Inter­net of Things (IoT) and Fin­Tech, the Hub from Nurem­berg ZOLL­HOF which focus­ses on the fields of Digi­tal Health, Inter­net of Things (IoT) and Arti­fi­ci­al Intel­li­gence, as well as the Media­Tech Hub Pots­dam.

The goal of this trip was to streng­then this rela­ti­onship, and to more con­nect the start­up eco­sys­tems of the two count­ries more clo­ser, but also to learn from each other. Among other things, they tal­ked about how attrac­ti­ve it would be for start­ups to enter the Ger­man mar­ket and what role the hubs could play in this. 

In addi­ti­on, seve­ral key loca­ti­ons were visi­ted, such as the Pan­gyo Tech­no Val­ley, an indus­tri­al com­plex of the city of Pan­gyo and hot­spot for start­ups and com­pa­nies from the regi­on, or the Inche­on Start­up Park. The­re were mee­tings with the Glo­bal Digi­tal Inno­va­ti­on Net­work, the South Kore­an Minis­try of SMEs and Start­ups (MSS) and the Korea Ven­ture Invest­ment Cor­po­ra­ti­on, as well as a visit to the Hyun­dai Motor Group’s ZERO1NE Acce­le­ra­tor, whe­re seve­ral start­ups pit­ched their busi­ness ideas. 

Over­all, the four days were extre­me­ly exci­ting and insightful. Many thanks to Ger­ma­ny Trade & Invest, RCKT and AHK Korea for orga­ni­s­ing this trip. 

Here you can find some impressions: