Kakao (035720.KS) Group announced Friday that its student artificial intelligence competition, "AI Top 100 (Campus)," concluded successfully amid enthusiastic participation.
Held on June 4 at Kakao's AI Campus in Gyeonggi Province, the event targeted high school and university students. Kakao Impact and Brian Impact organized the competition, with the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) and Kakao serving as sponsors. The event was a spinoff of "AI TOP 100," which drew a strong response from participants of all age groups in November last year, and was specially designed for students who will lead the future of Korea's AI industry. It was notably the first program held as part of MSIT's "National AI Competition Initiative."
An online preliminary round held on the 14th of last month drew applications from approximately 3,000 students nationwide, demonstrating strong interest. Participants' majors ranged widely beyond IT to include business, social sciences, and arts and athletics. In addition to university students, those from general high schools, specialized high schools, vocational high schools, and Meister high schools also took part.
The 100 finalists who advanced through the competitive preliminaries tackled high-difficulty problems using various AI tools, drawing on their creativity and technical skills. While the majority of participants were university students, high school students also delivered impressive performances on par with their adult counterparts.
Lee Jeong-hun, a freshman at Soongsil University born in 2007, won the grand prize, the Minister of Science and ICT Award. "Rather than aiming for an award, I participated to enjoy the process of solving problems using AI tools," Lee said. "Through this competition, I was able to confirm my own capabilities, and it will serve as an opportunity to study AI more deeply."
The gold prizes, the Kakao CEO Award, went to Hwang Cha-bin of Konkuk University and Moon Jeong-yun of Korea Aerospace University.
Ryu Seok-young, chairperson of Kakao Impact, said the event was "a meaningful occasion to witness the potential of future AI talent." She added, "We plan to continue our efforts to spread AI capabilities across the entire population and to nurture talent."