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19 to 20 September 2017

The "Urban Innovation Challenge: Citypreneurs" is a city-based start-up competition for young entrepreneurs and start-ups worldwide to seek solutions to urban problems towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Co-hosted by ESCAP, WFUNA, Seoul Metropolitan Government and organized by Seoul Digital Foundation, the competition was held from 19-20 September in Seoul, Republic of Korea.

Guided by citizen generated data on areas they wanted to see their local government improve on, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the competition focused on three critical urban issues: health technology; education technology; and transportation and environment. During the course of competition, pre-entrepreneurship education and mentoring program were provided to 30 selected teams. The event also featured a policy dialogue on how to further enable youth entrepreneurship for the SDGs, including ideas such as opening up public sector procurement to social start-ups. The winning teams of the competition were Dobrain (cognitive therapy for children with learning difficulties), Eidware (rehabilitation solution to prevent Alzheimer's disease), and Liberty (urban wind power generator). Teams will continue to receive mentoring and support to further develop their products resulting in a Demo Day, planned for December 2017.

Please read the press release here.

for more information, please contact

Subregional Office for East and North-East Asia +82-32-458-6600 [email protected]