Suwon Hosts 4th Youth Idea-thon Competition... 'TraveNue' Wins Grand Prize

[Suwon Ilbo=Reporter Jung Jun-seong] The idea 'TraveNue' proposed by the 'Ajou Balloon' team won the grand prize at the '4th Youth Idea-thon Competition'.

The competition, hosted by Suwon City and organized by Ajou University's LINC3.0 Project Group and Hope Nest Cooperative, was held on the 27th and 28th at the Haenggung-dong Eul-rim Center under the theme of 'Smart Tourism'.

An 'Idea-thon' is a portmanteau of 'Idea' and 'Marathon,' where participants generate and present creative ideas related to a specific theme within a limited time. Youth residents of Korea aged 19 to 34 can participate.

The city recruited competition participants (teams) from July 1st to August 12th, and 32 teams submitted ideas. Fourteen items were selected through the first round of preliminary screening, and award-winning entries were selected following expert mentoring on the 27th and the finals competition on the 28th.

The 'Ajou Balloon' team won the grand prize (prize money of 2 million won), with a total of eight teams selected including one excellence award (1 million won in prize money), one superior award (500,000 won), and five encouragement awards (100,000 won each).

'TraveNue' (Travel+Menu), proposed by the 'Ajou Balloon' team, is a service that receives menu items from restaurants and displays translated menus in multiple languages along with food images.

Suwon City plans to actively reflect selected excellent ideas in its policymaking after reviewing their feasibility, and will support commercialization through product development and consulting.

Mayor Lee Jae-joon of Suwon Special City, who presented the awards on the day, said, "I will work to develop the ideas you have proposed into policies," and added, "I hope young people will propose many good policy ideas."