November 4-6, Held at Aalto University in Espoo, Finland
The 'Gojingamrae (Bitter Sweet)' team, winners of JUNCTION 2022, Europe's largest technology hackathon.
[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Dongguk Lee] Busan City announced that the winning team of the ‘2022 JUNCTION ASIA BUSAN’ held in Busan last August, ‘Gojingamrae (Bitter Sweet),’ participated in the largest technology hackathon in Europe, Finland’s ‘JUNCTION 2022,’ and won the final championship.
A hackathon is a compound word of hacking and marathon. Unlike the negative connotation of internet hacking, it refers to forming teams to relentlessly explore and generate ideas purely for enjoyment on a specific problem, creating innovative new technologies such as web services or business models.
‘JUNCTION 2022’ is one of the world’s largest hackathons, held from November 4 to 6 at Aalto University in Espoo, Finland. About 1,300 planners and developers from around the world participated, showcasing their skills by planning and developing projects on given themes within 48 hours.
The Gojingamrae team (members: Kim Junsung, Kim Sunghoon, Jang Donghoon, Park Chansu) participated in the finals without judging as the winning team of ‘2022 JUNCTION ASIA BUSAN’ and developed an app service called ‘Haru’ that helps teenagers develop a habit of writing diaries, ultimately winning the championship.
‘Haru’ is a service where artificial intelligence (AI) draws a picture based on the diary content written that day.
The Gojingamrae team not only won the final championship but also won the subsidiary event, the Google Cloud Side Challenge, becoming a double champion of the competition.
The final winner of the competition was selected based on mutual evaluations by ‘JUNCTION 2022’ participants and judging by partner companies. The winning team receives a prize of 10,000 euros (approximately 14 million KRW) and various benefits from partner companies.
‘2022 JUNCTION ASIA BUSAN’ was successfully held from August 19 to 21 at BEXCO, hosted by Busan City together with SHIFT, the Korean JUNCTION operating team, and Busan Technopark. Among 1,123 applicants from home and abroad, 310 young talents from 22 countries who passed the preliminary screening competed in the finals.
To become a city centered on digital transformation, the city is providing comprehensive support not only by attracting and hosting high-level technology hackathons like ‘JUNCTION ASIA’ but also by supporting commercialization through technical support and providing development spaces via programs such as the Busan Big Data Innovation Center Challenge for excellent business models.
The Gojingamrae team said, “While thinking about ways to improve teenagers’ mental health, we came up with the theme of diaries,” adding, “We plan to release the app as an actual public service in a more developed form.”
Mayor Park Hyung-jun said, “The ‘JUNCTION ASIA BUSAN’ held last August was a moment in Busan that awakened creative innovation capabilities and shared the wave of innovation in the Fourth Industrial Revolution and digital transformation,” adding, “We will systematically support and develop global innovation competitions like JUNCTION to create an innovative data industry ecosystem, attract innovation capabilities from the metropolitan area and overseas to Busan, and create an opportunity to expand Busan’s potential to overseas markets.”
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