The Ministry of SMEs and Startups said on the 3rd that it held the 27th Women's Startup Competition awards ceremony at the Nine Tree Premier ROKAUS Hotel in Yongsan, Seoul.
The Women's Startup Competition is a contest for prospective founders and founders that has been held for 27 years since 2000 to identify women-founded corporations with excellent ideas and to promote women's technology startups.
A total of 1,712 teams took part in this year's competition, recording a 39-to-1 acceptance rate. The 44 teams selected as final winners included not only advanced technologies such as big data and artificial intelligence (AI) but also beauty, apparel and food.
The grand prize went to Hwang Min-ji, head of Innermaeum, who developed women's wellness innerwear. Hwang will receive the Ministry of SMEs and Startups (MSS) minister's award and 20 million won in prize money.
The top excellence awards went to Kim Hyun-jung, head of Deepclue (developer of an optimized solution for precision diagnosis of ischemic stroke and assessment of treatment suitability), and Han Hee-ju, head of Coremotion (developer of a sensor-based digital screening solution to diagnose pelvic floor dysfunction in women).
The excellence awards were given to ▲ Kim Yu-mi, head of Ieum Bio ▲ Junghyun Kim, head of Prings ▲ Kim Ji-yeon, head of Hyper Network.
In addition to awards, competition winners receive follow-up support such as commercialization assistance and investment matchmaking. Among the winners, the top 13 teams will also advance to the unified finals of Challenge K-Startup, scheduled for September this year.
Park Yong-soon, head of the SME Policy Office at the Ministry of SMEs and Startups (MSS), said, "The winners here today and the many women entrepreneurs who took on the challenge are the protagonists showing new possibilities for women's entrepreneurship in Korea," adding, "The MSS will draw up and push forward support measures so that women's potential can unfold."