COMEUP 2021 gives investors, VC companies, and large conglomerates information on the current status of today’s markets and the expected future trends. The three-day event has covered everything from sustainable agriculture and the food industry to the purpose of the kitchen. The third day of the conference covered the entertainment and fashion scene with CEOs from prominent Korean and international startups. KTD was at the scene to bring you this brief market analysis from the perspective of the panelists.
Anything is Possible with Metaverse: Fashion Shows, Han River Parks, You Name It
The speakers in this fireside chat were Beomjoo Kim, Head of evangelism, Unity Technologies Korea, and Hugh Choi, CEO of Lifesquare, with Mr. Hugh Choi acting as the moderator. Unity Technologies recently acquired Weta, a company that focuses on VFX. Mr. Kim was asked to explain the reason behind the acquisition. He began by explaining that when we talk about metaverse, we have to talk about visualization. “How are you going to create virtual reality realistically?” he asks. Their expectation with acquiring Weta was the special effects and that they have those technologies. “With this new technology we have acquired, we hope that our users will be able to recreate the virtual world,” he comments. Therefore, every metaverse development is not happening in one direction, and blockchain also has decentralized technologies to apply to the metaverse. According to Hugh Choi, we will see that the line between the virtual world and the real world will disappear next year.
K-Drama Tug of War between Foreign Capital and Domestic Production
The second fireside chat included David Lee, CEO of Iyuno-SDI Group, and Hanjong Lee, the CSO of NAKD SEOUL. Mr. Hanjong Lee acted as the moderator in the chat. He began by commenting that the Iyuno-SDI group deals with Netflix and deals with a lot of localization. They are one of the representative firms in this area. To this, David Lee comments that globally his company deals with media localization and has about 25% of the global market share. They deal with Europe, Asia, and the US markets. On Netflix or other OTT platforms, we have seen new changes in the environment, which has helped Korean content go global. According to David Lee, technology is more important, and planning these aspects is really important.
NFT and Metaverse: Invitation to the Real Digital World
The panelists for this session were Mr. Clay Kim, the CBO of Giantstep, Daniel Kim, CEO of NFT Bank, and Sangsik Joo, CDO of Mesh Korea, acted as moderators for the panel talk. Daniel Kim began by describing his company by saying that NFT collectors worldwide have their assets, and they use NFT Bank as a platform to manage their assets. He continues to say, “You will be able to manage what kind of NFT you have and how much value you have.” Clay Kim describes metaverse as a virtual experience and a physical experience; they provide merged experience to the extreme. Mr. Kim says there are many pillars of technology to create a metaverse. It will have its economy and will need a different kind of pillar, and blockchain will be one of the important technologies that will enable that.
