[Edaily Reporter Kang Min-koo ] SKTelecom(017670)and Hana Financial Group co-hosted the “TECH4GOOD Hackathon” under the theme “AI Services for an Inclusive Future” at the SKT Human Resources Development Center in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province, from the 15th to the 16th.

The two companies have been jointly organizing hackathons since 2023 to foster future AI talent, and this year marked the third edition of the event.

This year’s event was held as part of both companies’ AI talent development programs. A total of 115 participants took part, including 61 members of the 9th cohort of SKT’s “FLY AI Challenger” program for young people and 54 participants from Hana Financial Group’s “Hana Young Financial Talent Development Project.”

The young participants presented a variety of ideas in the following areas: △solutions to support socially vulnerable groups and build a sustainable society; △AI services for the digitally excluded; and △ESG services integrating finance and telecommunications. On-site, SKT developers served as mentors, answering technical questions and offering advice based on their practical development experience.

Daesang went to Team “T1,” which presented a personalized AI fairy tale created from a child’s experiences and a parenting solution service based on it.

The Grand Prize was awarded to the “Haemul Pajeon” team, which developed a service allowing parents with pronunciation difficulties to read fairy tales to their children using their own voices, and the “Sipiganjji” team, which presented a service that reconfigures stock price information into auditory and tactile formats for the visually impaired.

Lee Dong-hyuk, a student in the School of Global Media at Soongsil University who won the Daesang, said, “We considered the difficulties faced by socially vulnerable groups and explored solutions using AI,” adding, “This will serve as motivation for our future growth.”

Eom Jong-hwan, Head of SK Telecom’s Sustainable Management Division, remarked, “This hackathon was an opportunity for us to collectively confirm the potential of AI technology to create a better society,” adding, “SK Telecom will continue to strive to spread the social value created by AI.”