Amazon to support Ulsan community, establish 200 million won fund

[Financial News] Amazon has unveiled its second Amazon Korea Community Fund in South Korea. The fund, totaling $150,000 (about 200 million won), will support institutions such as schools, nonprofit organizations and libraries in carrying out projects that meet local community needs. The move is seen as an effort to strengthen collaboration with South Korea’s AI ecosystem by expanding support to local communities, following investment in AI infrastructure and talent development.
According to industry sources on the 9th, the “Digital Innovation Track,” newly introduced to the Amazon Korea Community Fund this year, supports projects that use digital technologies such as cloud computing and AI to address practical challenges facing local communities. 
The Amazon Korea Community Fund is operated in partnership with ChangeX, a community engagement platform that delivers funding directly to local residents. ChangeX offers two types of grants: “Open Grants,” which support projects conceived locally, and “Verified Ideas Grants,” which help communities bring projects that have proved effective elsewhere to their own areas. The five verified ideas selected this year include “Friendly Floaties River Drifters,” in which students make GPS drift buoys from recycled plastic bottles to track where river trash accumulates before reaching the sea and work with their communities to find solutions, and the “Technovation Challenge,” in which young people develop their own mobile apps to address problems in their communities.
Last year, the fund for Incheon allocated the full $100,000 (about 140 million won) to 23 projects, with about 5,700 people participating and about 15,500 benefiting. 
Ulsan, which joined the fund this year, is accelerating the adoption of AI across key industries, including automotive, shipbuilding and petrochemicals. In June last year, AWS announced plans to establish an “AWS AI Zone” in Ulsan with SK Group. The aim is to help domestic companies and developers use AWS’s range of AI and cloud services to develop and operate innovative AI applications. In March this year, AWS also announced a partnership with Ulsan City, the University of Ulsan, Ulsan College and Upstage Co., Ltd. to develop local AI talent.
[email protected] Jang Min-kwon Reporter