The World Federation of Overseas Korean Traders Associations (World-OKTA) said on the 24th that 150 people completed the "3rd World-OKTA Global Startup Competition (Shenzhen) entrepreneurship education," which covered practical startup creation and investment.
The program was held online for four days from the 18th to the 21st, co-hosted by World-OKTA and the Global Startup Committee. More than 150 participants, including prospective founders and startup officials, focused on practical startup operations using agentic AI (artificial intelligence), business model building, and fundraising strategies.
The curriculum consisted of eight courses: ◇ idea discovery and customer exploration using agentic AI ◇ validation of problem-solution fit ◇ business model building ◇ product-market fit analysis ◇ venture capital investment systems ◇ use of AI tools such as ChatGPT ◇ AI-based marketing ◇ building Generative AI, agentic AI, and AI-native corporations.
The faculty included Rick Rasmussen, industry fellow at the Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology at UC Berkeley; Michael Lepech, Stanford University professor; and Thomas Toy, general partner at Startup Capital Ventures.
In addition, Jung Suh, a San Jose State University professor; Silicon Valley venture investor Kevin Kim; and AI experts also served as lecturers, sharing the local startup ecosystem and the latest investment and technology trends.
Chairperson Sun Park of the Global Startup Committee said, "Through this program, we confirmed strong interest in founding startups using AI and entering global markets," and added, "We will continue to create various opportunities to support promising startups' growth and expansion into overseas markets."
Meanwhile, World-OKTA will hold the "3rd World-OKTA Global Startup Competition" during the 2026 World Korean Economy and Trade (Shenzhen) Expo, which will take place in Shenzhen, China, in Oct. The competition will proceed with preliminaries in September and an online semifinal, followed by the final and an awards ceremony at the Shenzhen Convention & Exhibition Center in China on Oct. 9.