The recruitment for Phase 2 of the "Modu Startup" project, which was delayed due to a personal information leak incident, will take place as early as next month.

Roh Yong-seok, 1st Vice Minister of SMEs and Startups, stated during a briefing held at the Government Complex Seoul annex today (the 31st), "The application opening time for Phase 2 of Modu Startup will be late August or early September," adding, "The system security reinforcement measures are scheduled to be completed in mid-August, and we expect the start of Phase 2 to be around that time."

Vice Minister Roh explained, "We held meetings across 17 cities and provinces, and the on-site demand to 'proceed with Phase 2 quickly' was extremely high," and noted, "Since this is a project carried out through a supplementary budget, the budget structure does not allow us to carry it over into the next year."

It was decided to keep the existing platform operator.

This is because changing the operator would require starting the platform design from scratch.

Vice Minister Roh said, "If we change the operator, we would have to start over from the beginning, which could take more than five months," and added, "Replacing the operator would take too long during the Phase 2 preparation process."

However, Vice Minister Roh emphasized, "We are conducting inspections to identify vulnerabilities in the system operator's setup together with an external security specialist firm and are taking complementary security measures."

The number of participants selected for Phase 2 is 10,000, double the 5,000 from Phase 1, and the eligibility has been expanded from "restart-up founders within 3 years of founding" to "restart-up founders within 7 years of founding."

In addition, the project will feature the "Modu Startup University League" involving more than 500 startup clubs at regional universities, the operation of "customized visiting startup education" for elementary school students, and "vacation startup camp competitions" for middle and high school students.

In particular, a "Global League" targeting overseas markets such as Silicon Valley in the United States, Singapore, and India has also been newly established.

Initially, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups planned to begin recruiting for Phase 2 of Modu Startup starting this month, but postponed the process after a personal information leak incident occurred.

(Photo: Yonhap News)