KEI is a startup-ecosystem research institute that measures, maps, and advances entrepreneurship across Korea’s cities through data-driven research and global collaboration.
KEI measures, maps and advances startup ecosystems across Korea’s cities. A measurement tells a city where it stands. A map shows how its actors are connected, and where they are not. The advancing part — the roadmap — is what makes the first two worth commissioning.
We work for city and provincial governments, national agencies, universities and support organisations, usually on one of three questions: where do we actually stand, did the programme work, and what should we do next, in what order.
To generate ecosystem evidence of a standard that holds up when the decision is expensive — comparable across cities, reproducible by others, and specific enough to act on.
KEI is led by an educator and platform builder with experience spanning university entrepreneurship curricula and international development programmes.
Chief Executive Officer
Chief Executive Officer, MainContents Co., Ltd.
Standing Director, Korea Association of Entrepreneurship
Adjunct Professor, Konyang University
Expertise
Entrepreneurship simulation platform development, University entrepreneurship education curriculum development, KOICA ODA project management
KEI works on startup ecosystems and nothing else. Every method, dataset and instrument we maintain is built for that one question.
Indicators, weights and data sources are published with each study so a reader can reproduce the result or challenge it.
Studies are led by tenured faculty in entrepreneurship, innovation policy and venture strategy — not delegated to junior staff.
Our partnership with StartupBlink and universities abroad places Korean cities inside an international reference set.
Findings arrive as sequenced actions with an owner and an indicator attached, not as a list of observations.
Cities we diagnose are re-measured on the same instrument, so change over time is visible rather than asserted.
Considering a diagnostic, an evaluation or a joint study? Tell us what decision it has to support.
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