Startup-driven innovation to take center stage at Exit Daejeon 2019

South Korea’s fifth-largest metropolitan city is poised to host the Global Startup Festival Daejeon 2019 from Tuesday through Thursday as part of its efforts to become a global hub for startup-driven innovation.

The three-day Exit Daejeon 2019 event will take place at Daejeon Convention Center. It is co-sponsored by Daejeon Metropolitan City, Herald Corp., Daejeon Center for Creative Economy & Innovation and CEO Clubs Korea.

The conference is expected to host 300 participants, including SME and Startups Minister Park Young-sun, Daejeon Mayor Her Tae-jeong and municipal government officials, Herald Corp. CEO Kwon Chung-won, as well as figures from the global startup community and academia. 

A major feature of the event will be Slush -- the world’s largest nonprofit startup conference held in Finland. Slush CEO and Wave Ventures co-founder Andreas Saarl, along with the firm’s director and angel investor Moaffak Ahmed will be present to deliver keynote presentations.

Panelists include Anne Badan, founder of Shortcut -- a nonprofit startup builder, a sister organization of Slush. She will be joined by HAX founder Cyril Ebersweiler, Junction head Antti Hammainen, WeWork Labs Global Co-founder and WeWork Korea General Manager Matthew Shampine and Line ScaleUp Executive Director Jayden Kang in Thailand to share their insights.

On the sidelines of the three-day conference, startups will audition for a slot in this year’s Slush conference. A total of 24 Korean startups will pitch before representatives of Slush, HAX, Wave Ventures, as well as officials of Beijing-based technology hub Zhongguancun and China General Chamber of Commerce, among others.

Three finalists will be offered an all-expense paid trip to Helsinki this November to attend Slush 2019 and set up booths.

In addition, meetup events for startups and Slush representatives, presentations by officials of embassies in Korea, as well as networking events between startups, investors and government officials will also be available, while some 60 Korean startups have been given a chance to set up a booth at Daejeon Convention Center.

By Son Ji-hyoung (consnow@heraldcorp.com)