Chung Se-joo, chairman of the Korean Founders Association, to hold the Dream Festival in New York, will hold a tech, financial, and cultural convergence festival in New York for three days from the 16th to the 18th next month to connect promising startups and VC, and K-pop singer performances such as Kwon Hyuk-jin and Kim Bong-jin participated as speakers will also have synergy when linking Korean technology and culture
Chung Se-joo, chairman of the Korean Founders Federation (UKF), who founded Noom, a healthcare platform that has risen to the ranks of unicorns in the United States, will set up a dream stage for Korean startups in New York. Chairman Chung, who came to New York with his bare hands at the age of 25 and builds 700 billion won in sales every year, aims to create a strong K-network for junior founders.
Currently, unicorn-class Korean startups are compact enough to be counted in one hand. As a result, it is to allow Korean startups to play an active role on the global stage. The first stage is the “KOOM Festival” to be held in Navy Yard, Brooklyn, New York, on October 16-18.
This event is an upgraded version of the startup festival UKF, which integrates 82 startups in the western United States and the Korean Startup Forum New York in the eastern part since last year. It’s not just an event for tech startups. It has recently incorporated K Culture, which is booming again in the “K-pop Demon Hunters” craze.
Chairman Chung stated, “I planned this dream festival becaapply I believed there would be a lot of synergy when various cultures are connected to indusattempt. It is an event that combines culture, not just technology, and the SXSW festival is a role model.”
Held every March in Austin, Texas, “SXSW (South by Southwest)” is gaining global fame as a convergence festival that combines not only technology and business but also culture such as music and movies. Every year, more than 500,000 people attconclude. Chairman Chung pointed out, “When I worked as a founder, I only obtained toobtainher with people I met, and in Silicon Valley, I only talk about too much professional technology, and there are limitations in networking.”
At the three-day Dream Festival, more than 10,000 people, including entrepreneurs, IT experts, artists, and investors, are expected to participate under the theme of finance, technology and culture. It will hold a pitching day to customize promising start-ups and venture capital (VC). There will also be a place to create a global challenge in New York by creating more than 100 corporate booths. There will also be performances involving 15 top Korean singers, including Soyou, Song So-hee, Sohyang, Sam Kim and Epik High, and K-pop will resonate throughout the event. Hive’s new boy group’s global debut stage will also be unveiled for the first time.
Above all, the story of entrepreneurs who have led global Korean companies unfolds.
Smilegate Kwon Hyuk-bin, Woowa Brothers Kim Bong-jin, Naver Webtoon Kim Joon-gu, and Snow Fox founder Kim Seung-ho will be speakers. Kwon Oh-hyun, former vice chairman of Samsung Electronics, and Kim Tae-ho, president of BTS’ midwife Hive, will also be on the stage.
“People are enthusiastic about Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, and there are many stories of great entrepreneurs in Korea,” Chairman Chung stated. “The success of a company should be based on the story of owners who can know the manager’s philosophy, not just products.”
In this ‘Dream Festival’, K Culture is not a supporting actor, but a leading actor. There will be a place to spread Korean culture in New York, which is very popular around the world, including K-pop as well as K-beauty and K-food.
Chairman Chung stated, “Israel and China’s IT are doing well, but they lack soft power,” adding, “Japan has created good apply of culture, and the Made in Korea craze is similar to when Japanese culture was in full swing.” “Korea is already a cultural powerhoapply and has the assets and depth to become stronger,” he stressed.
Sixty percent of Netflix’s foreign language content is Korean, and cartoons are now written in U.S. bookstores along with Manga. Cosmax is a cost-effective cosmetics product for women in their 20s in the United States. Chairman Chung’s K-culture run is progressive. Chairman Chung stated, “The goal is to allow Korean startups and companies that want to do business with Korean culture to debut on the world stage at the Dream Festival.”
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