The S(e)oul of Asia aims to become a ‘Sharing City’. Forbes Magazine refers to it as an ‘unstoppable force’, replications of AirBnB or TaskRabbit pop ups as mushrooms and 2013 is named as the year of the Sharing Economy – Seoul bandwagons the trend and sets out the be the ‘Sharing City’.
South Korea is a key country when observing the rising trends in social innovation and social entrepreneurship in East- and South East Asia. The passing of the Social Enterprise Act in 2007 and the election of Park Won-Soon for Seoul mayor in 2011 are only two amongst other milestones that have indicated the embracement of social entrepreneurship as guideline in addressing the societal issues arisen in the wake of the financial crisis in 1997.
Park Won-Soon is the founder of South Korea’s first social enterprise The Beautiful Store and a think-tank known as The Hope Institute (the South Korean SIX Asia partner) and now a strong supporter of the initiative to establish Seoul as a ‘Sharing City’
