Google's Seoul campus to house eight tech start-ups
GOOGLE has launched a campus for tech start-ups in Seoul on a 2,000-square-metre campus with space for eight firms. Its facilities range from meeting rooms to lactation rooms for female entrepreneurs to feed their babies - evidence of its desire for women
The launch came nine months after the US search giant announced its plan to open a South Korean campus.
Start-ups will receive consulting services from Google experts, and have the opportunity to exchange ideas with overseas firms based on other campuses. They will also be able to join lectures related to various business issues, such as marketing, finance and technology.
Speaking at the opening ceremony, President Park Geun-hye thanked Google for choosing Seoul as the venue for its first Asian campus for tech start-ups.
“I am very pleased that Google, focusing on the growth potential of South Korea developers and venture firms, has opened the world’s third, and Asia’s first, campus,” the president said. “The opening of the Seoul Campus is an excellent choice by Google.”
The first campus was launched in London in March 2012, and the campus in South Korea is the firm’s third. Another campus was opened in Tel Aviv, Israel, in December 2012. Google said the project’s global network provided participants with a wide choice of opportunities.
Around 1,000 entrepreneurs from 28 countries knocked on
the doors of the Seoul Campus during a three-week test run, with females accounting for 22 per cent.
Mary Grove, director of Google for Entrepreneurs, said start-ups supported by the London Campus generated more than 1,800 jobs over the past three years and won a combined US$110 million (Bt3.68 billion) investment. South Korean firms are also anticipated to post such robust performances.
Google will add more campuses in Spain, Brazil and Poland by the end of this year.
US ambassador to Seoul, Mark Lippert, and Choi Yang-hee, South Korea’s science and ICT minister, also attended the opening ceremony.
