"Children are growing as a content platform where they can enjoy and develop their talents."
This year marks the third year since the founding of CEO Lee Hye-rim of Kizling, who is currently scaling up the company. Kizling is a startup that operates a short-form platform for talent challenges exclusively for children. Lee founded the company in November 2022.
Elementary school students and even preschool children can freely share and communicate about various short-form videos they have created on the Kizling platform. The content varies from hobbies that children enjoy, such as dancing, the learning processes they are currently undergoing, to family trips. Children can plan and produce their own content to foster their creativity, and they can learn and broaden their perspectives by watching the content produced by their friends.
Kizling is currently conducting a media production-based "Creative Content Challenge" in 20 classes across elementary schools nationwide. In this format, children plan, shoot, and edit various creative content to upload to Kizling, sharing it with their friends and receiving mentorship from teachers.
Lee stated, "The content covers various topics, including the issues and countermeasures of deepfake (content that appears to be real but is created using AI), methods of evacuating when a fire breaks out at school, and personal information management and utilization," and added, "We will continue to expand the content challenges that help with children's education."
Kizling also held an online jump rope competition in partnership with the Korea Rope Skipping Association. During this competition, which took place online throughout the month of April, 4,531 pieces of various short-form content related to jump rope were created and shared, including children practicing jump rope and the challenges on the competition day. Judging was conducted online.
Lee noted, "While previous offline jump rope competitions were mainly attended by participants from the capital region, such as Seoul and Gyeonggi, this competition allowed online participation, making it enjoyable for children nationwide," and added, "The number of participants increased by 500% compared to previous offline competitions."
Lee is also preparing a dance challenge that children love. He mentioned, "We started a dance challenge last year, and we plan to expand its scale this year," adding, "Especially, with the competitiveness of mentoring by famous dancers and the online challenge format, we aim to enable children in rural areas to participate and enjoy it."
Lee further explained regarding Kizling's business, "As we share content with children, we have implemented AI technology to filter out explicit and provocative content, and incorporated gamification elements so that children can directly participate in the planning and production of content and feel the fun."
Kizling is also making progress in expanding overseas, including Vietnam. Lee remarked, "Vietnam is the most active country in Southeast Asia for short-form content consumption, with many children watching shorts through platforms like YouTube," adding, "However, there is no platform exclusively for children, so we believe we can lead the market."
Lee also mentioned, "As K-content, such as dance and music, is very popular locally in Vietnam, Kizling's short-form K-content will resonate in the market," stating, "We plan to expand globally, starting from Southeast Asia to the United States and Europe."