Urban Innovation Group Movement
Named as a Preliminary Candidate Site
Social venture Urban Innovation Group Movement announced that it has been selected as a preliminary candidate site for the Ministry of the Interior and Safety’s ‘Community Asset Building Support Program.’
The Community Asset Building Support Program provides local organizations and businesses with the funding needed to purchase spaces, so that neglected idle spaces (unused spaces) within a community can be repurposed as activity spaces that serve the local community. To date, 25 sites have already received support, including 12 in 2020 and 13 last year.
The preliminary candidate sites selected this time will receive loans of up to 1 billion won per case after undergoing a guarantee review by the Korea Credit Guarantee Fund and a loan review by Nonghyup. Once a site becomes a program beneficiary, it also receives support such as customized advisory services and participation in a performance-sharing network.
Through this program, Urban Innovation Group Movement aims to create a community and innovative startup space in the Seochon (Okin-dong) area, built together by social ventures and local residents. The ‘Seochon Culture Lounge Archive Okin’ and ‘Teomunui Hope Base Okin,’ which Urban Innovation Group Movement is already developing together with the Seoul Metropolitan Government and SH, are located nearby, so significant synergy effects are expected through exchange and connection between the spaces.
Urban Innovation Group Movement is a social venture engaged in developing urban and regional content and spaces, as well as collaborating with and fostering local social ventures, and it was recently designated as a preliminary social enterprise by the Ministry of Employment and Labor.
Last year, it carried out projects such as the ‘Research Service for the Development of Gangbuk-gu and the Improvement of Resident Satisfaction in the Post-COVID Era’ and the ‘2021 Youth Housing Relay Forum.’ This year, starting with this community asset building project, it aims to serve as an ‘Impact Developer that creates better cities.’
Jeong Jae-wook, CEO of Urban Innovation Group Movement, expressed his ambition, saying, “Through being selected for this Community Asset Building Support Program, we expect to be able to achieve the citizen asset building and community asset building that we have dreamed of,” and “We will show how spaces created by innovative social ventures can transform a community.”
Meanwhile, Urban Innovation Group Movement is a social venture established with the goal of developing and researching urban and regional content, creating innovative spaces, and collaborating with and fostering local social ventures, and it aspires to be an ‘Impact Developer that changes cities.’ It was founded in 2021 by CEO Jeong Jae-wook, former director of the ‘Gangnam-gu Single-Person Household Community Center,’ the nation’s first institution dedicated to single-person households, and has been designated as a preliminary social enterprise by the Ministry of Employment and Labor. The company’s headquarters is located in Room 7416 of the ‘KAIST-SK Impact Business Center’ inside the KAIST Seoul Campus.