Software Succor
The Korean government will provide greater R&D assistance for promising software developers.
The Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning announced on April 12 that it carries out the K-ICT Software Global Leading Strategy to this end. The plan is to select eight fields for the development of basic software technology, including operating system development and intelligence software development, and turn 25 college labs into Software Star Labs by 2017 for assistance for up to eight years.
In the field of applied development, projects for software developer support are underway for their ideas to be fully reflected in product development. Also, administrative procedures are to be simplified for the convenience of startups, and market-friendly R&D projects will be launched for companies in the growth stage, while overseas business assistance is provided for those seeking opportunities abroad. The focus on performance evaluations will be shifted to qualitative indices from quantitative ones such as the number of patents, and evaluators are to include outside experts as well.
The Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning is aiming to increase the competitiveness of domestic software developers from 73 percent to 80 percent of that of American software developers by 2017, while raising the number of global open software firms to five and total global software firms to 50, respectively.