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Underdogs: 'Fostering Entrepreneurial Small Business Owners - A Breakthrough in Addressing Regional Decline and Creating Social Value' Underdogs, a startup education specialist company, announced that it can address the crisis of regional decline through the entrepreneurship of local small business owners via branding education and digital transformation education. The government established the 'Regional Decline Response Fund' in August and announced plans to support population-declining and underdeveloped regions starting this year for 10 years. The annual support amount is 1 trillion won, with 250 billion won for metropolitan governments and 750 billion won for basic local governments. Accordingly, each local government is planning projects to preserve the influx of people to regions using the fund, such as creating workation and rural study bases, supporting newcomer settlement, and supporting youth startups, implementing regional decline response policies tailored to each area. Experts emphasize that it is important to maintain a balance between one-time financial support such as small business policy loans and educational support for the influx population, including startup education. The goal is to ensure that the population flowing into provincial cities can settle as economically active population in the long term, laying the foundation for enhancing regional economic self-reliance. Additionally, they advised that to revitalize regional economies, education should be provided to promising small business owners to support them in growing into representative regional brands. Since 2015, Underdogs has provided startup education including branding education and digital transformation education to local small business owners and regional entrepreneurs through customized coaching education via Underdogs coaching staff and startup education content, supporting their capacity building. To date, Underdogs has applied startup education in various fields including 'Underdogs Startup Academy', 'Localize Gunsan' with SK E&S, 'Naver Square Local Food Brand School' with Naver, 'Join Jeongeup' with SK Nexilience, and 'Iksan With Local' with Jeonbuk Energy Service, striving to strengthen competitiveness of small business owners in the pre-startup and early-stage startup phases. For example, Lee Mi-so, CEO of Agricultural Company Bateo and a graduate of the second cohort of 'Underdogs Startup Academy', utilized potatoes from Gangwon Province to open 'Potato Field' in Chuncheon City, introducing potato-shaped potato bread that has gained public affection. The store has become a popular tourist destination in Chuncheon, and potato bread is distributed nationwide through Marketcurly, Rocket Fresh, Megacoffee, and other retailers. Among companies participating in the 'Localize Gunsan' project conducted by Underdogs, SK E&S, and Gunsan City, 'Local Friendly' designs a local community connecting Gunsan citizens and tourists visiting Gunsan. After settling in Gunsan, they have operated the community hotel 'Whose Next' and traditional alcohol bottle shop and stay 'Juu Inn (酒Inn)' for many years, led various neighborhood festivals connecting local small business owners, and revitalized the Gunsan regional economic ecosystem. Cho Sang-rae, CEO of Underdogs, stated, "The discovery and nurturing of regional-based small business owners will serve as a foundation for building a regional economic ecosystem by nurturing both producers and consumers." He added, "Underdogs will continue to open various opportunities for strengthening small business owners' competitiveness, including growth as entrepreneurs and strengthening branding competitiveness."