Ubergizmo Discovery #2: Chatting with Korea’s Silicon Valley

In this episode of Ubergizmo Discovery, we jump in a video call with prominent Pangyo Techno Valley actors. Pangyo is Korea’s Silicon Valley.

I went to Pangyo (map) a few years ago, and it is a brand new techno-city under immense expansion. Things looked new and super-modern back then, but our friends in the call told me that what I’ve seen is probably 20%-25% of the overall Pangyo Techno Valley project, so I’m glad we had a chance to catch up for a bit.

If you don’t know of Pangyo and the potential business opportunities there, here’s the 10,000 feet view. Pangyo is part of Gyeonggi-do (“do” is similar to “province”), which is a vast area surrounding the city of Seoul. It’s nearly 1/8^th of the total size of South Korea.

Pangyo is located between Gangnam (Seoul) and Suwon, which is also called “Samsung City” because of the enormous city-size campus. Suwon is where Samsung mobile phones are designed, among other things. I’ve been to Suwon several times since 2013, and I can confirm the nickname is well deserved.

The Pangyo Techno Valley’s innovative ecosystem is driven by the Gyeonggido Business & Science Accelerator (GBSA), a government-funded organization that helps South Korean innovators at the state level.

The chat was moderated by Alex Sigrist who speaks Korean and facilitated by Aving News, our media partner on this episode. Mr. Moon Young Lim, the Future Growth Policy Bureau Officer, was kind enough to tell us about the history of Pangyo and how it is funded and nurtured by the South Korean government as an innovation hub.

In the video below, we casually talk about various topics during the one-hour call. I’m giving you all the direct video links below, so you can jump directly to the part that is of interest to you. If you have questions, feel free to drop a comment on YouTube.

2:37 – Moon Young Lim introduces himself and his organization (in Korean)
4:03 – translation of Mr. Moon’s introduction
6:31 – Mr. Moon asks Hubert about housing in Silicon Valley and how the proximity of Universities affected Silicon Valley.
8:48 – Hubert asks Mr. Moon what’s the driving force (and money) behind the Pangyo Techno Valley
9:04 – Mr. Moon’s answer (in Korean)
10:11 – Translated answer from Mr. Moon

Alex Sigrist continues the discussion for the Pangyo side and presents “what Pangyo is” in detail, before going over different products and interesting Pangyo news. Timecodes below:

13:05 – What Pangyo Techno Valley is, in details
33:00 – Pangyo news highlights (NFTs among other things)
37:15 – AhnLab next-gen firewall
38:50 – Naver invests in TBCASoft (Blockchain)
41:32 – SK Bio Vaccine gets Phase-3 approval
43:27 – Kakao’s founder becomes the richest man in Korea
44:33 – NCSoft’s ESG game industry report
45:05 – Nexon CEO resigns
45:43 – Link vs. Klaytn crypto competition

Then it’s my turn to discuss topics that caught my attention, related to AI and Space technologies. The webcast embed is at the end of this article:

48:57 – Hubert talks about AI in manufacturing
53:57 – AI for agriculture
55:43 – AI that understands Human Behavior (for Self-driving) + AI learning to drive in a virtual world
59:20 – AI, Edge computing = old silicon valley + new silicon valley
1:01:33 – Space tech is fascinating now… especially for terrestrial business.

 

Hubert Nguyen
Categories: Events
Tags: Aving, innovation, Korea, Startups, Ubergizmo Discovery