Coupang Hosts First Coding Competition 'Hackathon' Among Retailers

'핵서울(hackseoul) 2024' Co-hosted
Over 200 Developers from Home and Abroad Participate

Coupang announced on the 26th that it successfully concluded the global hackathon 'hackseoul 2024,' in which it participated as a co-host. This is the first time a distribution company has hosted a global-scale hackathon in Korea.

A hackathon is a coding competition that combines the words 'Hacker' and 'Marathon,' where participants develop programs within 24 hours.

Coupang co-hosted 'HackSeoul 2024,' the first global hackathon event organized by a domestic distribution company. Participants of HackSeoul 2024.
[Photo by Coupang]

This event was hosted by AngelHack, a global company that has been organizing hackathons since 2011, and co-hosted by Coupang and zkPass, a personal data protection protocol company. As a co-host, Coupang not only provided the venue but also had key engineering experts serve as judges and mentors.

The competition, held over two days from the 24th to the 25th at Coupang’s headquarters in Songpa-gu, attracted over 200 developers from 10 countries including the United States, Canada, Uzbekistan, and India. The participants ranged from junior to senior developers and university students. Leaders from domestic and international tech companies such as Orbs, Hyundai AutoEver, and RIDI participated as mentors.

The hackathon was conducted under three themes: 'Inclusive Finance,' 'Social Responsibility,' and 'Digital Empowerment.' Coupang presented the challenge in the 'Digital Empowerment' category as "developing innovative solutions that significantly enhance customer satisfaction, increase user engagement, and promote business growth."

Jie Zhou, Vice President of Coupang’s e-commerce engineering division, and Kyunghoon Min, Director of the Backend Engineering Team, delivered encouraging remarks to the participants before the competition. Vice President Zhou said, "Coupang joined this global hackathon series with a commitment to customer-centric innovation, continuous improvement, and talent development. We expect participants to deeply understand customer needs and develop innovative solutions that solve real problems through this competition."

At the awards ceremony held on the final day of the competition, Coupang CEO Han Seung Kang personally presented trophies and prize money to the winning teams. CEO Kang said, "Thank you for proposing excellent ideas together with Coupang at this hackathon. We look forward to innovative and creative ideas that can be applied in the tech industry in the future."

A Coupang official stated, "We discovered groundbreaking ideas through the global hackathon," adding, "Based on this, Coupang will introduce services that can further improve the customer experience."

Coupang co-hosted 'hackseoul 2024,' the first global hackathon competition organized by a domestic distribution company. Group photo of the winners of hackseoul 2024.
[Photo by Coupang]