Gyeonggi Province Opens '2020 Online VR/AR Hackathon Competition'

[Suwon Ilbo=Reporter Park No-hun] Gyeonggi Province announced on the 14th that it is recruiting participants for the '2020 Gyeonggi VR/AR (Virtual/Augmented Reality) Hackathon' competition until the 30th.

The hackathon, known as an 'ultimate development competition,' is a portmanteau of 'hacker' and 'marathon,' referring to a competition in the information and communications field where developers collaborate to generate ideas and produce results over a short period.

This competition is based on the main theme of 'post-corona' and will be held in two rounds: preliminaries (October) and finals (November). To prepare for COVID-19, it will be held in an online, non-contact format.

Anyone with affiliation to Gyeonggi Province—whether through residence, workplace, or school—can participate. Applications are accepted in team units of 3 to 5 people or as individuals. For applications of 2 or fewer people, team formation support will be provided through preliminary needs assessments.

In the preliminaries, scheduled for October 21 to 23, participants will implement content over 3 days based on detailed themes announced on the first day, and 10 finalist teams will be selected through judging.

Preliminary participants can attend invited lectures by VR/AR industry experts during the competition period and receive team-based mentoring to review their projects. The 10 teams advancing to the finals will receive additional weekly mentoring until the finals competition scheduled in November.

Prize money will be awarded to the 5 teams selected in the finals: 3 million won for the grand prize (1 team), 2 million won for the excellence award (1 team), 1 million won for the merit award (1 team), and 500,000 won each for the encouragement award (2 teams).

Im Moon-young, Director of Future Growth Policy at Gyeonggi Province, said, "We will spare no effort in supporting VR/AR developers who will lead the Fourth Industrial Revolution era," and added, "We hope that through this competition, all participants can grow into representative VR/AR talents of Gyeonggi Province with global competitiveness."

Participation applications can be submitted until 24:00 on the 30th through the Gyeonggi Content Agency website (www.gcon.or.kr). For more details, contact the Gyeonggi Content Agency Future Contents Team (031-8064-1713).