Busan Creative Economy Innovation Center (CEO Yongwoo Kim, hereinafter referred to as Busan Creative Economy) announced on the 17th that it has completed the selection of partner companies and supported startups for the 'Startup Open Innovation Challenge in Busan 2025' to promote open innovation in Busan, and will begin full-scale PoC (Proof of Concept) verification support starting in July.
This year, leading companies in the Busan area, such as Jo Gwang Paint, Willow Pump, and Samjin Food, are participating as partners. Each partner company directly selected one startup with high potential for business collaboration in June, and plans to fully operate a customized PoC starting in July.
Three startups were selected as verification partners: ▲Lee Jang Co., Ltd. (Jogwang Paint), ▲Waterbee (Willow Pump), and ▲Wooaz (Samjin Foods). The selected startups will receive various growth support benefits, such as PoC support of 10 million won from Busan Changgyeong, verification opportunities, and business networking.
▲ Lee Jang Co., Ltd. is a startup that provides healing solutions for dementia patients by installing dementia-friendly gardens in the Busan area. Lee Jang is working with Jo Gwang Paint to develop and demonstrate colors that help improve the cognitive functions of dementia patients.
Lee Hye-sook, CEO of Lee Jang, said, “It is meaningful to have the opportunity to collaborate on color development to improve the quality of life of dementia patients in the aging society with Jo Kwang Paint, a leading domestic color specialist company,” and added, “We will do our best to produce meaningful results from this collaboration.”
▲ Waterbee is a startup that develops solutions for real-time precise measurement and management of water quality in various environments, such as water supply and sewage, based on domestic sensors and ICT technology. It has internalized its own technology from sensor design to hardware and software, and emphasizes on-site optimization and maintenance efficiency. In the demonstration with Willow Pump, it verified improved precision and reliability compared to foreign products and applied optimization, and is promoting the spread of smart water quality management technology to the public and private sectors in the future.
Son Ho-jeong, CEO of Waterbee, said, “This collaboration with Willopump is meaningful in that we can prove the competitiveness of domestic technology with our self-developed sensors and platforms,” and “We will use this demonstration as an opportunity to grow the Korean water quality management model into a global standard.”
▲ Uaz is a startup that operates an app and Instagram account called 'Uaathing' for the growth and health of infants and toddlers, and provides accurate health information in various fields such as environment, food, and life. In this demonstration with Samjin Foods, they plan to develop and verify customized products such as fish cakes that children can easily consume protein from.
Kim Ji-eun, CEO of Uathing, said, “It is meaningful that we can develop a product that can provide healthier fish protein to children through our collaboration with Samjin Foods and show a solution that parents can trust,” adding, “We will use this verification as an opportunity to create a new standard for infant and toddler health management.”
Busan Changgyeong PM Kim Jin-seok said, “The center has been working for a long time to create collaborative cases where Busan’s leading companies and startups innovate together,” and “Through these efforts, we will further spur the activation of regional open innovation.”
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