Baek Byung-yeul is a journalist at The Korea Times focused on cultural content, including films and cultural events in South Korea. You can contact him at baekby@koreatimes.co.kr to share your insights.
Samsung Electronics becomes stepping stone for startups
Waddle CEO Park Ji-hyuk, left, poses with his employees at their office space located at Samsung Electronics' startup incubator residency program in Seoul, in this photo provided by Samsung, Dec. 30. / Courtesy of Samsung Electronics
By Baek Byung-yeul
By Baek Byung-yeul
Samsung Electronics has been working to foster local startups through its incubation program C-Lab as part of its corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities to enhance the country's industrial competitiveness.
Logo for Samsung Electronics
The C-Lab program has offered business opportunities for Samsung Electronics' employees with creative ideas to kick off in-house startups. Since 2012, around 1,200 executives and employees have participated in the C-Lab program and over 160 workers have set up 45 startups through it.
To foster the local startup ecosystem, Samsung decided to expand its C-Lab program and has been supporting startups outside the company since 2018.
Not only does the company provide support funds to those startups registered in the program, but also supports them to promote their services and products at both domestic and overseas trade shows such as the Consumer Electronics Show.
Samsung's move to support startups is in line with its Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong's vision that the future begins with a dream.
In July, Lee visited Samsung's startup incubation center in Suwon, south of Seoul, and encouraged startup employees based there. During the meeting, Lee said “the future starts from a dream. Let's continue making opportunities.”
Park Ji-hyuk, CEO of startup company Waddle, said his company was selected recently as a member of the C-Lab program.
He moved his workplace from Daejeon to Seocho District in southern Seoul where office space provided for startups participating in the C-Lab Outside program is located.
Park established Waddle in 2018 with an aim to help people caught in technology blind spots. In July, the company launched Sori Market, an AI-based e-commerce platform specifically designed for people with visual impairments.
He applied for the C-Lab Outside program hoping to take advantage of its various supports ranging from office space, business consulting to even promotional opportunities.
“I first learned about the C-Lab Outside program when we launched Sori Market. During the past two years, we have been working to achieve a goal to create a service that people with visual impairments can use. But at the same time, we have also questioned ourselves about what we should do after this,” Park told Samsung Electronics' in-house newsroom, Wednesday.
“We thought this is the time to organize our thoughts on what we want to do next and what we can do based on our knowhow we learned by developing and operating the service. And we came up with the idea that the C-Lab Outside is the right program for us because it offers office space, provides various consulting so that we can grow and connects us with the world through different kinds of trade shows.”