BAT Korea Hosts 'Open Innovation Hackathon' to Foster Startup Talent

BAT Korea held a business agreement ceremony for the 'BAT Open Innovation Hackathon' on the 1st at the Gyeongnam Creative Economy Innovation Center in Changwon City. (From left: Seungho Kang, Executive Director of BAT Korea Sacheon Plant; Donghyung Lee, Director of Gyeongnam Creative Economy Innovation Center; Seonjong Ryu, CEO of N15)

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Hye-sun] BAT Korea announced on the 2nd that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with hardware accelerator ‘N15’ to host the ‘BAT Open Innovation Hackathon.’

The ‘BAT Open Innovation Hackathon’ is part of BAT Korea’s ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) management initiative, designed to support the startup ecosystem and nurture future talent. Through this hackathon, BAT Korea aims to discover startups with growth potential and pursue subsequent collaborations. The Gyeongnam Creative Economy Innovation Center will support infrastructure and mutual exchange to revitalize startups, while N15 will be responsible for overall hackathon operations.

The hackathon themes focus on ideas that can accelerate smart innovation at BAT manufacturing plants in the areas of predictive maintenance of equipment, logistics monitoring, and ESG management (smart factory). Startups wishing to participate can submit their application forms with ideas on the official website by the 6th.

Selected teams will receive support worth a total of 40 million KRW, and the ideas proposed by the selected startups will undergo a solution feasibility verification process by BAT’s operational departments and may be adopted as follow-up collaborative projects.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.