Ku Hyuk-chae (구혁채), first vice minister at South Korea's Ministry of Science and ICT, visited Seoul Bio Hub in the Seoul Hongneung small-sized research and development special zone on Tuesday to review on-site support for youth entrepreneurship.

The visit was the 23rd stop in Project Empathy 118, aimed at field-focused science and technology policy. It was intended to review startup support in the special zone, which is run based on local industry-academia-research cooperation, and to hear views from young entrepreneurs.

Ku visited Osite, a youth startup that is a tenant at Seoul Bio Hub. He later held a meeting with young entrepreneurs who graduated from the Seoul Hongneung special zone's startup support programme, the GRaND-K Startup School.

The GRaND-K Startup School is a competitive startup support programme the Seoul Hongneung special zone has operated since 2021. By 2026, it supported the launch of 345 teams and linked 48.0 billion won in investment. It also produced results including Cureverse, which succeeded in a technology transfer worth 500.0 billion won.

From this year, it will expand support for youth technology startups by selecting young founders for 70 percent of those it supports. Selected teams will receive shared training such as management and tax education, along with company-specific programmes including business diagnostics and mentoring.

The meeting discussed government support policies and ways to improve them, focusing on the overall startup ecosystem from early-stage startups through company growth.

Ku said, "Through research and development special zones, the Ministry of Science and ICT will actively support young researchers in achieving their dream of technology startups, and will also actively support follow-on growth so that startups can leap into innovative companies."