KT&G (CEO Baek Bok-In) signed the "World Class 10 Year Project" with Busan Metropolitan City, Busan Techno Park on November 14 at the Busan City Hall International Office.

The 'World Class 10 Year Project' is a program to discover and foster young people in Busan to become global leaders. It selects three applicants from the △Culture and Arts, △Professional, and △Issue Leader area and supports their capacity development for three years every year until 2030.

Lee Sang-Hak, the director of KT&G's sustainability management division (vice president), Kim Yoon-il, the deputy mayor of Busan Metropolitan City, and Kim Hyung-Kyun, the president of Busan Techno Park, attended the ceremony. Under the agreement, KT&G plans to promote the △business and support youth talent development, △consulting, and △developing selected talents' capacity through the "Sangsangmadang Busan." In particular, each organization plans to build a cooperative system to help potential young people in Busan grow into global leaders and international talents.

"KT&G has opened the ‘Sangsangmadang Busan’ to support the growth of young people in Busan." said Shim Jae-young, director of the social contribution at KT&G. 

She also added, "With the 'World Class 10 year project,' we will actively support Sangsangmadang Busan to become a gateway to becoming a youth talent in the region."

Meanwhile, KT&G has been operating the 'Sangsang Start-up Camp' since 2017, a program designed to help young entrepreneurs grow. This year, six companies have been operating, and up until now, the program has produced 97 new business teams, 745 new job creation teams, and increased sales by approximately 20 million KRW. In addition, the "KT&G Sangsang Planet," a young startups-only space, opened in 2020 in Seoungsu-Dong Seoul, a Mecca of social ventures in Korea. It offers a variety of youth start-up programs, including business-in-business coaching and mentoring services. In addition, the KT&G Sangsangmadang supports indie bands and emerging artists, while SangsangUniv has a variety of youth support programs that help college students improve their marketing skills.