The announcement was posted in Google's Asia Pacific blog. According to the blog, the Campus will be built to deliver support to the country's budding entrepreneurs where there are no strings attached and no strict rules on business preferences. It will hold various programs such as Campus for Moms which caters to women with babies, and Campus EDU, which will conduct workshops and mingling opportunities with Google employees. Participants in the Campus will be provided with a wide range of opportunities.
Google has similar Campuses in London and Tel Aviv. There's also a plan to put up new Campuses in Warsaw and Sao Paulo. Google Campuses are the company's high profile marketing strategy. The London-based Campus had been successful in achieving the company's goal of driving tech entrepreneurship. On its first year, Google claimed that Campus London had successfully provided startup programs to around 70,000 participants and had supported 247 startups. All of these resulted to a combined investment of $56.2 million (£34 million). On its second year, it already had 22,000 members and has done a lot for the start-up community in London.
The Campus in Seoul, Korea is the third one by the company and the first one in East Asia. "As the first campus to be established in Asia, the size will be similar to Campus London," says Google in a press release. It adds that the Campus in Seoul, just like its sibling Campuses in London and Tel Aviv, has the main goal of creating a vibrant startup community.
Bridgette Beam, the Global Entrepreneurship Manager of Google said that the business sectors have no boundaries at the Campus. "An entrepreneur can even come up to and make an application that works only on the iOS platform, and not on the Android," adds Beam.
Choi Yang-hee, South Korea's ICT Minister, welcomed the idea of opening Campus Seoul. He added that this venture of Google will also help the country in its drive on creative economy which deals with producing unique business opportunities through the convergence of various industries.
While it is true that the startup ecosystem in Seoul is growing, it is still considered as very young. In this case, entrepreneurs are faced with certain issues such as lack of funding, mentorship, and exit opportunities. Hopefully, the Seoul Campus of Google will change all these by providing budding entrepreneurs with more opportunities and more room for growth.
The Seoul Campus is scheduled to open in the district of Gangnam in the first half of 2015. The exact opening date is yet to be announced.
