On Jan. 1 of this year, Park Chang-sook, who has led the Korea Women Entrepreneurs Association (hereinafter referred to as the Association), noted on the 6th, "We will nurture women corporations that lead the femtech industry."
On that day, Park held her first press conference since taking office in Yeongdeungpo District, Seoul, and said, "Femtech is a very promising field that improves the quality of life for women, contributes to solving the low birth rate issue, and has a large market size, but the awareness of the domestic femtech industry is very low, and related support is lacking."
Femtech is a compound word of female and technology, referring to products and services that utilize advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and big data for women's menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting.
This includes artificial intelligence (AI) solutions for women's pregnancy, childbirth, and health management, subscription services for women's products, and childbirth training apps. The Association is planning to establish a new support project for these femtech corporations next year, which can only be discovered by the Association.
The Association is the only legal women's economic organization in Korea, established in 1999 under the 'Act on Support for Women Entrepreneurs.' It represents 3.26 million women corporations and conducts various projects to promote the interests of women entrepreneurs and encourage women’s business activities. Currently, about 10,000 members are active.
Park is the CEO of Changwoo Textile Co., Ltd., a fabric manufacturing company, and is the first female chief executive officer (CEO) in the domestic knitting industry. She joined the Association in 2014 and served as the second president of the Northern Gyeonggi Branch from 2016 to 2018. On the previous day, Park was also appointed as vice chair of the Women Entrepreneurs Committee of the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Park promised to actively support the overseas expansion of women corporations. She stated, "I realized that entering the overseas market as early as possible leads to greater success," and made this remark.
Park also expressed her ambition to strengthen the representation of the Association by increasing the current membership of less than 10,000 to 10,000 regular members and 100,000 general members—approximately tenfold. This plan aims to embrace young members from the 2040 generation, as well as women entrepreneurs of varying sizes and industries.
Currently, the proportion of the 2040 generation among regular members is less than 5%, so the Association plans to waive membership fees and annual fees (660,000 won) and offer various networking opportunities as incentives.
Park emphasized, "Having lived as a female entrepreneur for the past 35 years, I realized that business cannot grow alone," adding that "the Association will become a focal point for women corporations to come together to overcome difficult times and grow together." She further stated, "We will strengthen our chemical bond with the Women’s Comprehensive Support Center, which is currently sharing women's business support projects, through human resource exchanges and the establishment of an integrated management system for nurturing women's corporations."