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Participants pose for a group photo at the AI hackathon jointly hosted by SSAFY and Kakao Tech Bootcamp. / Kakao

Kakao is teaming up with Samsung Electronics to cultivate development talent to lead the artificial intelligence era.

Kakao announced on June 15 that it jointly hosted the "SSAFY X Kakao tech bootcamp AI Hackathon" with Samsung Electronics at the Kakao AI Campus in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, over a two-day period from June 13 to 14.

The event marks the first collaborative hackathon linking the "Kakao Tech Bootcamp" and the "Samsung Software Academy For Youth (SSAFY)," the respective tech talent training programs run by the two companies. Both firms have been operating developer education programs through the Ministry of Employment and Labor's K-Digital Training (KDT) initiative. They co-planned the event to expand their cooperation toward building a developer ecosystem, moving beyond conventional talent nurturing and employment support. Out of the trainees from both programs, a total of 12 teams (six from each company) comprising around 90 participants were selected through preliminary rounds to participate.

The hackathon centered on the government-selected "Top 10 AI Projects for Public Welfare" as its core theme. Participants selected one of various public welfare challenges—including support for small business owners, voice phishing countermeasures, child and youth protection, and maritime risk analysis—to design AI-driven solutions and implement them into actual service prototypes during a 30-hour overnight marathon.

To ensure participants could deeply understand real-world on-site challenges and ponder practical solutions, the event provided professional hands-on mentoring and special lectures by current Kakao developers. Notably, officials from major government ministries responsible for the selected tasks, including the National Police Agency, the Ministry of Justice, and the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, participated as mentors to conduct in-depth question-and-answer sessions.

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Participants work on their projects at the AI hackathon jointly hosted by SSAFY and Kakao Tech Bootcamp. / Kakao

Following final presentations and evaluations, a total of five winning teams were selected to receive awards including the Minister of Employment and Labor Award, the Kakao CEO Award, and the Samsung Electronics CEO Award, with a total prize pool of 15 million won distributed as 3 million won per team.

The Minister of Employment and Labor Award went to team "Golden Time." The team received high marks for developing "DRIFT," a service that helps the Coast Guard with rescue operations by utilizing AI to analyze various conditions at an accident scene even when communications are cut off after a maritime distress incident. Team "SSAIKA" won the Kakao CEO Award for implementing "Mindam," an AI-powered service designed to efficiently receive and process civil petitions. In addition, the Samsung Electronics CEO Award went to team "Unlock," the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry Chairman Award to team "Ddangkong," and the Korea Radio Promotion Association Chairman Award to team "Kavengers."

Participants expressed that the hackathon allowed them to gain real-world development experience and realize the importance of collaboration. Kim Dae-hoon, who currently works as a developer at Kakao after completing the Kakao Tech Bootcamp, said, "It was meaningful to solve social issues with AI technology that are rarely encountered in the workplace. The process of planning and developing a service alongside participants from diverse backgrounds gave me fresh perspectives and ideas."

Another participant, Jang Ye-hoon, shared his thoughts: "While serving as an Air Force officer, I decided to take the path of a developer by joining the Kakao Tech Bootcamp because I wanted to solve inconveniences in daily life. Carrying out a project that utilizes AI to tackle actual public welfare challenges during this hackathon served as a catalyst for me to grow to the next level as a developer."

"This hackathon is significant not just as an excellent case of public-private educational cooperation between the government and businesses, but as an example of maximizing educational impact through collaboration among private companies," said Kwon Dae-yeol, Chief Sustainability Officer at Kakao. "We plan to expand hands-on projects and collaborative experiences to strengthen our support for nurturing the talent required in the AI era and for advancing the developer ecosystem."

Meanwhile, Kakao has trained a total of 660 tech talents since being designated as an operating institution for the Ministry of Employment and Labor's "K-Digital Training" Digital Leading Academy in 2022. The Kakao Tech Bootcamp and SSAFY were previously introduced as South Korea's flagship examples of tech talent fostering at the 2025 APEC Human Resources Development Working Group and related labor ministerial meetings.

                                                                                                            Kim Young-jin