Diving into the journey of the 2nd LG Aimers and the AI Hackathon

The 2nd LG Aimers has come to a successful end, having systematically trained future AI experts through theoretical education by the best AI professors in Korea and a practical AI Hackathon competition that utilizes actual data. The program offers a comprehensive curriculum to nurture top talent in the AI field. In particular, outstanding results were achieved by the teams that participated in both the online preliminaries and offline finals of the AI Hackathon. Let's take a closer look at the journey of the 2nd LG Aimers, who are set to lead the future of AI technology, as well as the exciting on-site of the AI Hackathon.

Unfolding dreams toward the future of AI with LG Aimers

LG Aimers is a program established by LG AI Research to cultivate young AI talents by providing high-quality AI education to aspiring individuals. It is open to young people between the ages of 19 and 29 who are preparing for employment, regardless of their academic background or major. Considering academic schedules, LG Aimers holds two sessions per year during summer and winter breaks. The program had its 2nd session this year, starting with the 1st session in July 2022, which drew around 1,900 participants.

Participants in the LG Aimers program gain knowledge from lectures by top experts in both academia and industry and also get hands-on experience by working with actual data held by LG affiliates. In particular, AI Hackathon enables participants to acquire the skills to solve actual problems using AI.

The 2nd LG Aimers held an Essential Course education in January, an online Hackathon in February, and an offline Hackathon in March. First, in the Essential Course, 7 top AI experts in Korea lectured on core theories, traditional statistical-based approaches, AI technologies reflecting the latest trends, and domain knowledge required to solve Hackathon problems.

Following this, the AI Hackathon, which is the hands-on course of LG Aimers, is a competition where participants utilize their skills and AI technology to solve problems that could arise in the industry. Starting from the first competition in 2020, the Hackathon has been held twice a year, and it has been conducted in partnership with LG Aimers since the latter half of last year. It consists of 2 rounds, online preliminaries and offline finals, and the top teams receive prize money and various benefits.

The LG Aimers AI Hackathon: A practical competition utilizing real business data

The LG Aimers AI Hackathon centered around the theme of “Developing a product quality classification AI model for building smart factory control systems.” In other words, the goal was to develop an AI model that could accurately assess and categorize products based on specific standards, ultimately reducing the occurrence of quality issues and ensuring consistent production efficiency and stability.

During the month of February, 495 teams and 898 young individuals participated in the online preliminaries, with the top performers earning the opportunity to progress to the offline finals. At the finals, participants had 1 night and 2 days to analyze the given data, redefine problems, and refine the AI models created during the preliminary round.

The offline Hackathon, known as the ultimate challenge of LG Aimer, took place at LG Academy in Icheon, Gyeonggi-do on March 25th, lasting for 1 night and 2 days. The finalists performed an advanced algorithm enhancement mission based on the algorithm they developed during the online Hackathon, using newly provided data, within the limited time of 1 night and 2 days. The goal was to enhance the performance, maintaining or even exceeding the same level of performance when the latest data is applied.

Besides the Hackathon, there was also a job fair involving 8 LG affiliates taking place at the same venue. The participating LG affiliates, including LG AI Research, LG Electronics, LG Display, LG Innotek, LG Chem, LG Energy Solution, LG U+, and LG CNS, had set up recruitment booths outside the Hackathon venue to provide information and counseling services for top-tier job opportunities. Participants had the opportunity to receive customized 1:1 counseling from professional recruitment consultants, and could also register for the LG AI talent pool, granting them priority during recruitment. Additionally, many students also took part in the Personal Color Diagnosis Booth, where they could directly consult with personal color experts. At the photo booth and photo wall corner, participants could be seen taking photos together while taking a brief break from solving Hackathon challenges and enjoying some leisure time.

Winners of the 2nd LG Aimers AI Hackathon

On the final day of the offline Hackathon, the leaderboard scores, codes, and presentations of participants were judged to select the top three teams with the highest scores. The “Noah's Ark” team won 1st place, the “Newbies to Machine Learning” team took 2nd, and the “Crisis-Led Learning” team finished 3rd.

The winning team, “Noah's Ark,” presented a way to mitigate potential problems associated with using a single model by utilizing a model divided into two parts, Regressor and Classification. This model received an excellent score, evaluated as being able to improve overall data detection performance. The 2nd-place team, “Newbies to Machine Learning,” proposed a well-constructed validation model that focused on data with multiple variables. Meanwhile, the “Crisis-Led Learning” team, who won the Excellence Award, achieved great results by attempting to group products by identifying the characteristics of the data.

After winning 1st place, the “Noah's Ark” team delivered a comment where they mentioned, “This was an excellent opportunity for us to directly handle data used in the actual field and exchange ideas with teammates, which helped us strengthen our teamwork.” The “Newbies to Machine Learning” team also shared their aspirations for the future by saying, “Even though we just started studying AI, this was a fantastic experience for us to focus on one goal, and we plan to study more intensively and professionally in the future.”

The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners will be awarded the Grand Prize (Minister of Employment and Labor Award) and a prize money of KRW 5 million. The Top Award winners (LG AI Research Chief Award) will be granted a cash prize of KRW 3 million, and the Excellence Award winners (Hankyung.com CEO Award) will receive a cash prize of KRW 2 million. Furthermore, all finalists, including the winners, will be given a total of KRW 60 million in scholarships. The award ceremony will take place on Thursday, April 6th, at the LG Science Park.

The vision of LG Aimers, leading the nurturing of future talents

The LG Aimers program is a pre-professional course where participants can gain both theoretical knowledge and hands-on experience through Hackathon. Through this program, LG is actively engaging with young people and providing them with essential education, with the goal of establishing itself as a reputable program that nurtures young experts and develops the next generation of AI professionals. In addition, the program aims to improve the employability of young people and help address the labor shortage in the AI industry. As a recently selected "Youth-Friendly ESG Support Project" by the Korean Ministry of Employment and Labor, this program will continue to provide high-quality educational programs and diverse experiences to young people, while striving to nurture talented individuals who will lead the way in the future.

▶ LG Aimers official website (Link)