Busan's First Global Data Hackathon 'DIVE 2024' Successfully Concludes

'Dive 2024' Tournament to Be Held for the First Time in Conjunction with Festival Siwol at BEXCO from the 4th to 6th

Domestic and International Youth Challenge, Festival, and Passion for 'Global Hub City Busan'

Busan Metropolitan City announced that "DIVE 2024," the city's first global data hackathon held in conjunction with FESTIVAL SHIWOL, has successfully concluded.

'Global Data Hackathon Competition' DIVE 2024.

"DIVE 2024" was held at BEXCO for three days from the 4th to the 6th, and was the first attempt to link the event with "FESTIVAL SHIWOL," Korea's largest convergence festival that organically connects 17 different festivals and contents scheduled to take place in Busan this October.

This competition is a self-branded "Global Data Hackathon," where young people from Korea and abroad analyze data and derive solutions to problems, making it a global hackathon festival.

A hackathon is a compound word of "hacking" and "marathon," referring to an event where analysts, developers, and others interested in a specific issue gather to create innovative new technologies such as web services or business models within a limited timeframe.

This year's competition saw 326 young people from Korea and abroad, selected from over 500 applicants from 11 countries through a preliminary screening, forming 91 teams and competing passionately for 48 hours. In particular, the services presented by the winning teams in each category received praise from officials for adding innovation and creativity to technology.

The final winners were determined through presentations by the eight first-place teams from each task provider. The overall grand prize went to the "Pang" team, which participated in the BNK track 1 task, and the "Ivy" team, which participated in the joint task of Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology, East Asia Sea Community Ocean, and Coastal Big Data Platform in track 2.

Additionally, the best teams were the "Pint" team for the Samsung SDS task and the "Gonjigonji" team for the city-affiliated public corporation council task. The excellent teams were the "Panorama of Analysis" team for the All Data (Samsung Card, Lotte Members, NICE Information Service) task and the "FORIF" team for the Korea Railroad Corporation task.

A total prize pool of 15 million KRW was awarded to the 24 teams selected in this competition. The two teams each for the overall grand prize, best, and excellent categories received the Busan Mayor's Award and prize money, while the first to third place teams for each task provider received awards from the respective providers.

This year's competition required teams of two to four members to choose between track 1 (data analysis) and track 2 (app/service development), and collaborate for 48 hours to derive solutions to technical problems presented by the task providers.

For track 1, 179 participants in 50 teams applied to the three task providers: Samsung SDS, BNK Financial Group, and All Data. For track 2, 147 participants in 41 teams applied to the five task providers: Samjong KPMG, ANSYS, Korea Railroad Corporation, the joint task of Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology, East Asia Sea Community Ocean, and Coastal Big Data Platform, and Busan Transportation, Tourism, and Urban Corporation.

This year, eight companies and institutions presented tasks on topics such as solutions to social issues in Busan and services that companies can utilize. Eight organizations, including local companies, sponsored this competition.

Looking at the tasks: Samsung SDS used its own analysis tool to analyze public data provided by the city to suggest directions for Busan's development; BNK Financial Group focused on categorizing user patterns of mobile banking customers; All Data (Samsung Card, Lotte Members, NICE Information Service) proposed ideas for making Busan a city people want to revisit, under the theme "Come Back to Busan Port."

In addition, Samjong KPMG planned an app service for participants of "World Youth Day 2027," ANSYS proposed a service to advance programs needed for virtual product development, Korea Railroad Corporation suggested differentiated ways to enjoy the Donghae Line according to lifestyle, the joint task of Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology, East Asia Sea Community Ocean, and Coastal Big Data Platform involved developing a "Smart Marine Environment Guardian Collection App," and Busan Transportation, Tourism, and Urban Corporation proposed developing a Busan promotion app using public data.

The sponsors of this year's competition were ZOOM, SlashBSlash, EventCat, Neulpureun Information Technology, Boomco, Stronghold, Pusan National University Startup Support Group, and Pusan National University Graduate School of Data Science.

More detailed information about "DIVE 2024" can be found on the official website.

Lee Junseung, Deputy Mayor for Administrative Affairs of Busan, said, "As the first event of its kind, 'DIVE 2024' sparked interest and curiosity about data among Busan citizens and participants, shared effective ways to utilize data, and served as a catalyst for building and developing Busan's data industry ecosystem. I would like to thank everyone who joined this creative and passionate youth festival, and we will continue to expand this platform for challenge and cooperation to lead the future of data innovation as Busan aspires to become a global hub city."