Gyeonggi-do Hosts Final Presentation of DMZ OPEN Policy Contest

Final Presentation of DMZ OPEN Policy Contest Held on the 6th
Presentations on Peace Policy Ideas to Foster Peace Atmosphere on the Korean Peninsula
Top 10 Teams Competed, 2 Excellence and 2 Encouragement Awards Selected

The DMZ OPEN Policy Contest, one of the events of the DMZ OPEN Festival, was held on the 6th at the KINTEX Grand Ballroom.

The DMZ OPEN Policy Contest, one of the events of the DMZ OPEN Festival, is being held at the Kintex Grand Ballroom on the 6th. Provided by Gyeonggi Province

According to Gyeonggi Province on the 8th, the final presentation, held under the themes of ‘Peace’ policy ideas to foster a peaceful atmosphere on the Korean Peninsula and ‘Environment’ policy ideas for the conservation and utilization of the DMZ’s ecological environment, featured presentations from 10 teams who had undergone three rounds of judging and two rounds of mentoring.

Among the 10 teams, 3 presented on the theme of peace, and 7 on the theme of environment. Various ideas were proposed, including the establishment of a DMZ library, experiential agriculture, a unification board game using VR technology, DMZ eco-tourism, the creation of a national park, training of ecosystem facilitators, and development of tour courses.

After the policy idea presentations, a Q&A session with experts from academia, industry, and government followed. Based on four criteria?theme completeness, feasibility, potential for development, and originality?four teams were selected: two for excellence awards and two for encouragement awards. No grand prize was awarded as no highly advanced proposals suitable for policy adoption were submitted.

In the peace category, the Nam-Buk Dongwon Team’s ‘VR South-North Cooperation Peace Board Game: Pieces of Unification’ won the excellence award, and the Uri Jip Dae Pyo Team’s ‘D.M.Z Farm Stay’ received the encouragement award. The peace excellence award-winning ‘Pieces of Unification’ is a VR board game set on a game board shaped like the Korean Peninsula, where players cooperate to complete missions, aiming to enhance mutual understanding between South and North Korean residents and promote perception change through game-based interaction. The peace encouragement award ‘D.M.Z Farm Stay’ proposes creating weekend farm experience spaces by utilizing idle land and abandoned spaces within the DMZ. It aims to increase multicultural population groups who continuously interact with the DMZ by allocating weekend farms to North Korean defectors, resident foreigners, and multicultural families.

In the environment category, the Eussa Eussa Team’s ‘Dark Tourism: Nature and Peace in the Darkness of the DMZ’ was selected for the excellence award, and the Gunggeug-ui Jidae Team’s ‘DMZ Village Ecosystem Facilitator Training Course’ received the encouragement award. The environment excellence award-winning ‘Dark Tourism’ draws inspiration from dark tourism sites such as disaster-affected areas and war ruins, places associated with human death and sorrow. It proposes recreating this in the DMZ to convey to tour participants the significance of the DMZ as a place where nature and peace coexist. The environment encouragement award ‘DMZ Village Ecosystem Facilitator Training Course’ suggests interpreting the DMZ ecosystem from the perspective of village residents and disseminating this to foreign tourists.

The selected works will undergo eligibility verification, with the two excellence award teams receiving 4 million KRW each and the two encouragement award teams receiving 1 million KRW each. Winners will also be awarded the Governor of Gyeonggi Province Award.

Kim Tae-hyun, Director of the Peace Cooperation Division, said, “The policy contest, which maintained its momentum through four rounds, concluded successfully with the final presentation. Gyeonggi Province will continue to strive until the end to adopt innovative and practical policy ideas and reflect them in provincial administration. Furthermore, through this, we will work to widely promote the ecological and environmental value of the DMZ and create an opportunity to enhance the atmosphere of peace on the Korean Peninsula.”