Baemin holds back-to-back in

Baemin, South Korea's Baedal Minjok food delivery service, held a conference to strengthen in-house technical capabilities and a youth entrepreneurship support hackathon on two consecutive days.

Woowa Brothers, the operator of Baemin, said on July 13 it held the in-house technology conference Woowahan Tech Day and the youth entrepreneurship support programme Woowahan Baton at Baemin Startup Square in Pangyo, Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province.

Woowahan Tech Day was the company's first in-house technology conference, held on July 9. It was attended by developers and non-developers with a strong interest in technology. The event featured 24 presentation sessions and two discussion sessions. In-house developers served as speakers and shared practical experience applying generative AI tools, outage response processes and transitions in capability toward product engineering. It also ran a Prompt Speedrun contest, an analogue mini-game zone and an in-house Easter egg scavenger hunt event.

Chief technology officer Myung-seok Go (고명석) said in the opening speech, "Woowahan Tech Day is a place for members to share diverse work experiences, trial and error, and knowledge," adding, "Based on the know-how we have built together, we will create the start of new change."

Woowahan Baton, a youth entrepreneurship support programme, was held on July 10. A total of 45 participants from 11 teams took part, including trainees and graduates of Woowahan Tech Course, Baemin's IT talent development programme, and tenant companies at Baemin Startup Square. It used a compressed hackathon format in which prospective founders and Woowahan Tech Course trainees formed teams to complete a working service prototype within a time limit. Participating teams were assigned to one of three tracks: the Business Advancement track, supporting solutions to startups' technical problems and pivoting; the Prospective Startup track, implementing startup ideas as prototypes; and the Graduates track, in which graduates formed their own teams to identify new items.

Baemin plans to link and operate follow-up programmes so the event does not remain a one-off. It will cooperate with the Gyeonggi Center for Creative Economy and Innovation to support the drafting of business plans and offer advancement lectures. Go said, "If Woowahan Tech Day was a place to strengthen in-house technical capabilities and culture, Woowahan Baton is a place to expand those capabilities to young talent and the startup ecosystem," adding, "Through an ecosystem that spans talent development, startup nurturing and further support for commercialisation, we will continue to play a leading role in the IT and entrepreneurship market."