The ASEAN-Korea Centre in 2020 made an extraordinary effort to provide in-depth yet interactive online contents amid the COVID-19 pandemic disrupting physical exchanges between peoples of ASEAN and Korea. As part of this endeavors, a series of video interviews, five in total, was produced and released on the organization’s YouTube channel under the title of AEAN Issue.

The first episode features an interview with Mr. Kim Eugene, General Partner of SparkLabs on the ASEAN-Korea cooperation in the startup sector, one of the business segments where collaborations between ASEAN and Korea have been significantly growing in recent years. Mr. Kim, the first-generation accelerator in Korea and businessman who has own experience of creating synergy with partners in the ASEAN region, offered an insightful analysis of the Korea’s startup ecosystem and importance of ASEAN-Korea partnership in the sector.

In the second episode, Woowa Brothers, Korean food-tech startup providing its delivery service Baedal Minjok, shared its experience of making inroads to the ASEAN market, contributing to closer business partnership between the two regions. The food delivery giant is successfully expanding its service in Vietnam based on cultural similarities and high popularity of Korean foods in the country. Mr. Kim Bom-jun, CEO of Wooa Brothers, noted that ASEAN is a promising market and at the same time a partner to make a future together.

The third episode stars Sruong Pheavy, a Cambodian marriage migrant in Korea who became a world-class billiard player after learning billiards by chance. The billiard player shared a fulfilling experience of connecting Cambodian and Korean peoples through sports and her dreams for contributing to education and development of her home country.

In the fourth episode, two K-Pop idols from Thailand, Minnie from (G)I-dle and Sorn from CLC appear and tell how they dreamed of becoming K-Pop stars, went through training, and finally debuted in Korea. Huge waves of K-Drama and K-Pop were not only widely enjoyed in the ASEAN region but also inspired many young people like Minnie and Sorn to take part in audition and to be a part of K-Pop industry. Their own experiences highlight that K-Pop is continuously extending its scope and open to the world.

The fifth episode features an interview with Mr. Cho Hyo-jin, former producer of SBS leading the production of which has been boasting huge popularity across the ASEAN region. The veteran producer, who has ample experiences of shooting programs in ASEAN with local staff, offers his professional analysis of how ASEAN and Korea expand their collaborations in the content industry, which cultural elements of ASEAN can be captured in TV show and appeal to worldwide viewers, and how the advent of OTT platforms will transform the way the content produced and released.