Innovation Centers facilitate creative economy 창조경제혁신센터， 그 310일간의 성과

The idea of innovation centers has been criticized as vague in the past... but progress has definitely been made since their launch. For more on what the centers have achieved so far... and what they are now looking to achieve in the future... Song Ji－sun reports. The pace may be slow， but the momentum is growing. Over 5－thousand potential startups have received advice from innovation centers that′s more than six－fold from the end of last year. Those interested in launching their businesses are now actively attending seminars run by the centers... and those that have already opened their businesses benefit from the government funding amounting to 140－million dollars per center. In less than a year， the centers have successully nurtured a handful of startups. Gyeonggi－do Province Center， for example， sent 3 startups to OrangeFab International Demo Day held in Paris in June，... an event organized by startup accelerator there... and helped 5 startups set up their booths at the Mobile World Congress held in Shanghai earlier this month. SK， in charge of running the Daejeon Center， has successfully fostered 10 startups that graduated from its program on Thursday. These startups on average， leveraged their revenue up to 1－point－5 million dollars over the past 10 months... up nearly 6－fold since participating in Daejeon Center′s program. The competition for inclusion in the center′s startup foster program now stands at nearly 30－to－1. As for upcoming plans... the government will launch an English portal for innovation centers to match domestic startups with foreign investors... and set up a national database for the startups. Seoul will also hold a ′Creative Economy Innovation Festival′ at the end of next month. Song Ji－sun， Arirang News.