Kakao Contributes to Regional IT Education and Ecosystem Through Sponsorship of Goormthon Jeju

Kakao sponsored Goormthon Jeju to bridge the IT education gap in non-metropolitan regions, including Jeju. Through this sponsorship, which included mentoring and lectures by active developers, venue provision, and souvenirs, the application competition ratio approached 10:1.

Value of Kakao's Sponsorship and Contribution to the Ecosystem

Considering that many participants were students and young professionals, Kakao focused on expanding the base of the technology ecosystem by having active developers directly lecture on cloud and IT technologies, Agile and Lean methodologies, and provide mentoring. Participants formed balanced teams of developers, planners, and designers, producing high-quality results without dropping out midway. Kakao crews also drew inspiration from the participants' passion and reaffirmed the value of education based on cloud infrastructure.

Future Plans: Long-term Educational Program '9oormthon TRAINING'

Beyond the traditional hackathon format, Goorm plans to launch '9oormthon TRAINING', a long-term educational program supporting developer growth, in early May. This program will be fully funded by government subsidies and will offer four tracks: Full-stack Web, AI, Cloud, and Information Security. Additionally, 'goorm COMMIT', a monthly developer networking event, is being held at Goorm Square in Pangyo. In the future, Kakao intends to strengthen its long-term educational partnership by leveraging community developers and in-house resources.