Israeli Ambassador to Korea Uri Gutman, left, poses with Start Tel Aviv 2016's winner Dodotdo CEO |
By Rachel Lee
Israel has chosen startup company Dodotdo as Korea's representative for Start Tel Aviv 2016, an annual global competition that the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs has run since 2011.
The goal is to "help promising early stage startups to meet and establish relationships with potential customers, partners and high-profile industry leaders alike," according to the Israeli Embassy.
Dodotdo, led by Sim So-young, has developed a hotel management system that uses devices such as smartphones and smart watches.
The winner will take part in the five-day competition, experiencing Tel Aviv's unrivaled startup environment with winners from 22 countries, including Italy, England and Spain, from Sept. 25-29, the Israeli Embassy said.
The company will also attend the Digital Life Design (DLD) innovation conference on Sept. 5, the embassy said. DLD is a global network on innovation, digitization, science and culture.
Tel Aviv is known as Israel's business capital and a leading innovation hub filled with world-class technology talent.
"Relations between Korea and Israel are growing closer thanks to an exchange of visits by high-ranking officials as well as free trade agreement negotiations that began recently," Israeli Ambassador to Korea Uri Gutman said.
"I hope Dodotdo plays a role in building a bridge for exchanges of startup innovation between the countries."
The embassy and Samsung Electronics co-hosted the Start Tel Aviv 2016 event at the Daegu Center for Creative Economy & Innovation from May 10 to July 5. Twenty-two startups participated.
Israel, as a global hub for art, culture, science and technology, has attracted more than twice as much venture capital investment as the U.S., and 30 times more than the European Union, according to the Israeli government.
Previous Korean winners of Start Tel Aviv are crowd-sourcing translation platform Flitto, established by Simon Lee (2013), and Ediket, a crowd-sourced proofreading platform set up by Kim Min-kyu (2014).
Last year, Israel chose Diocian, a company that offers a music-networking service that enables musicians to produce, promote and distribute their work around the world. It gained an opportunity to attend the DLD Innovation Festival Week, a global gathering of innovators and entrepreneurs that focuses on different sides of digital, technological and urban innovation.
Winning startups from other countries include: Splash Mobile (Spain), a mobile applications development platform for the disabled and elderly; Discue (Demark), an online platform for audiovisual live discussions, and Formisimo (England), an advanced analytics tool that tells how visitors are interacting with online platforms.
Seoul and Jerusalem began official talks on the trade deal last month after seven years of delay since the talks began in 2009.
Israel was Korea's 49th largest trading partner, with trade between them worth more than $2 billion last year, according to government data.