The Ministry of Science, Technology, Information and Communications of Korea has selected 18 government-supported projects, including blockchain projects, to provide technology development support for information and communication (ICT) innovative companies.

On July 31, the Ministry of Science, Technology and Information and Communication of South Korea stated that the government plans to select the support projects in the first phase (3 months in the early planning phase) and the second phase (18 months in the technology development phase) in phases, and improve related projects through government support. technology development capabilities and commercialization results. Among them, 1.16 billion won was invested in the first phase to support the preliminary planning of 40 projects, and 3.5 billion won was invested in the second phase to support the research and development of 18 projects.

Government support is carried out in a "dual-track" manner. First, the government will provide selected projects with "support for developing new ICT markets" (Track 1), promoting the integration of information and communication technology (ICT) and other industries, and opening up new markets. The second is "ICT core technology development support" (the second track), focusing on promoting the development of six core technologies to consolidate the development foundation of core technologies. In the field of blockchain, the "Blockchain International Maritime Digital System", a marine ICT company "GMT" dedicated to strengthening maritime logistics and security systems, will be selected for review.

After the Ministry of Science, Technology and Information and Communication issued the project recruitment announcement in January this year, a total of 166 projects signed up, which received a great response from ICT SMEs, with a competition rate as high as 9.2 to 1. In March of this year, the Ministry of Science, Technology and Information and Communication passed the first stage of selection and selected 40 pre-planning projects for initial support, helping these projects to refine their strategies and formulate patent strategies to increase the success rate.

The Ministry of Science, Technology, Information and Communications stated that this time, it will review the selected projects in the first stage, select the technology development projects supported in the second stage (18), and provide technical research and development support for these projects in the next 18 months. When selecting the second-stage support projects, we focused on the non-contact service projects and future innovative service projects of digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things that have received much attention under the COVID-19 epidemic.

JOIND Kwon Seona reporter kwon.seona@joongang.co.kr

JOIND Kwon Seona reporter kwon.seona@joongang.co.kr