KITA Steps up to Find Key Ideas for Startups

- Hold contactless Hackathon utilizing three technologies such as eye tracking, Extended Reality (XR), game user analysis -

On February 4^th, the Korea International Trade Association (Chairman: Kim Young-ju) began to recruit participants for the “Pivoting Hackathon with Startups” scheduled to be held in March .

The word hackathon is a combination of the words hack and marathon referring to an event in which planners, developers, etc. form a team and come up with ideas, and then launch new apps, web services, and business models within a limited period of time.

This event is designed to to develop innovative services and new business models by utilizing ▲eye tracking technology, ▲augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technology, and ▲game user behavior analysis technology of three startups Visual Camp, Salin and TentuPlay, co-host of the hackathon. 

Applications will be accepted from February 4^th to 24^th, and received via e-mail (startup@kita.or.kr). Afterwards, the final will be held on March 9^th after document screening and the competition (February 26^th to March 8^th). In order to prevent the spread of virus, all events will be conducted non-face-to-face. This hackathon will be held with 9 million total in prize. The 9 teams that are finally selected will enjoy additional benefits such as employment offers and extra points for recruitment depending on the fields along with prize money.

Park Pil-jae, chief of Global Startup Center at the Korea International Trade Association, said, “SpaceX has successfully expanded its business from plant transplant project on Mars to rocket manufacturing, and Slack has changed from game messenger into business messenger with proper pivoting,” and added, “We hope that this hackathon will be a pivoting opportunity for Korean startups to discover new business models, and we will continue to expand startup events down the road.”