Gwangju Artificial Intelligence Academy Wins Consecutive Domestic Hackathon Competitions

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Seon-gang] Gwangju Metropolitan City announced on the 28th that five students from the Gwangju Artificial Intelligence Academy participated in the ‘News Big Data Hackathon’ hosted by the Korea Press Foundation and won the grand prize.

This hackathon was held as part of the ‘2020 Journalism Week’ event under the theme of ‘Developing public service ideas that can solve social problems using news data.’

The final victory was claimed by the ‘DOYA’ team, consisting of AI Academy students Park Seong-chan, Lee Yoon-hwan, Kang Min-ji, Lee Min-gi, and Go Jeong-hwan, with the idea titled ‘Employment Back (You just need to keep running forward, we will be your back),’ after about a month of preparation.

The students learned about this competition while working on academy assignments and, contemplating youth unemployment issues with their team members, planned and developed a service that recommends necessary employment-related news to users by dividing news data according to majors to alleviate some of the burdens on job seekers.

They were awarded the Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Award along with a prize of 5 million won.

This award is a remarkable achievement just two months after winning the domestic fintech AI hackathon hosted by Anchor Value in August, once again demonstrating public interest in the AI Academy and its excellent curriculum.

The AI Academy is currently conducting free projects and corporate projects with 11 AI-related companies, and after the main course ends, a performance report meeting will be held at the end of next month, marking the conclusion of the six-month training program.

Some students are preparing to start businesses based on the items that won hackathon competitions after graduating from the AI Academy.

Additionally, the city was selected for the Ministry of Science and ICT’s ‘Regional ICT Innovation Square Project’ and, based on the know-how accumulated from operating the AI Academy, has been conducting short-term courses in AI and blockchain since this month.

It is expected to establish itself as a leading AI-specialized talent training center, uniquely operating both long- and short-term AI courses nationwide.

Son Kyung-jong, Director of the AI Industry Bureau of the city, said, “As the Gwangju Artificial Intelligence Academy enters its latter half, the students’ achievements are becoming more evident,” and added, “We will provide multifaceted support so that students can gain more experience until the end and connect to employment after completing education through the Hope Linkage Project and the operation of the Employment Support Committee.”