Pakasa Youth winners tour Seoul city

Seoul, the capital of South Korea, is a bustling and massive city where futuristic skyscrapers, high-tech subways and pop culture meet Buddhist temples, palaces and street markets. It houses a fifth of South Korea’s 50 people million people.

Even though (unlike Uganda) the city does not have much by way of natural attractions, Seoul, a rising global city, reportedly received over 10 million international visitors in 2014, making it the world's 9th most visited city and 4th largest earner in tourism.

After almost of week of training in various aspects of business at the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) International Cooperation Center (ICC) in Seongnam, the 10 young entrepreneurs took a much needed break the Korean Capital over the weekend.  Seongnam is a satellite city of Seoul.

The team has so far been trained in various aspects of business like essential factors in formulating business management plans among others by top Korean professors and c among others by top Korean professors and corporate leaders.

The team which travelled in a bus, spent Saturday taking in the sights and sounds of this magnanimous city and enjoyed, up close, some of its outstanding attractions such as the Gyeongbokgung Palace, the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, the Folklore Museum and the Jeongdong Theatre where they were treated to traditional Korean dance performances.

As an outstanding aspect of Korean culture, the team is regularly treated to Korean cuisine, some of which is proving a bit too much for their palates.

“The food is generally rich and well prepared.   However, some of it is too spicy and hot while some of us are simply repulsed by foods we are not used to. They eat a lot of sea food here; everything from snails, octopus to lobster,” said one of the winners who preferred anonymity. KOICA sponsored the trip jointly with Embassy of South Korea in Uganda as part of the prize for the competition. The 10 also won sh10m in business support.

The Pakasa Youth Awards 2016 is a countrywide competition organized by Vision Group from October last year to March this year.

The 10 were selected from a pool of 171 profiles that were published by the New Vision's various media outlets. Their businesses range from Agro business, health, waste management, education and construction.