Hwaseong Special City Holds 'AI Hwaseong Challenge' Vibe Coding Competition

Hwaseong Special City (Mayor Jung Myung-geun) held the 'AI Hwaseong Challenge' on the 17th at the City Hall Grand Auditorium, where citizens, university students, and civil servants shared services and operational improvement results directly developed using AI.

The event, held under the theme of 'From Citizen Experience to Administrative Innovation,' was designed as a venue to identify urban issues closely related to citizens' daily lives and challenges in administrative field, and to present and demonstrate solutions implemented by participants. In particular, participants utilized 'vibe coding,' which enables AI assistance in program development through everyday language and text, to materialize their ideas into actual services.

The event was jointly held by Hwaseong Special City, Hwaseong Research Institute, Hwaseong Industrial Promotion Agency, Suwon University, and Hyupsung University, and proceeded in three categories: △Citizens and Civil Servants AI Contest △University Students AI DATA Competition △AI Champion Results Sharing Meeting.

The 'Citizens and Civil Servants AI Contest' presented six outstanding works selected through preliminary screening: three from citizens and three from civil servants. Participants presented services they developed based on inconveniences felt in their daily lives and areas requiring improvement in administrative operations, and suggested specific methods of utilization.

The 'University Students AI·DATA Competition' unveiled eight final selected solutions from 24 projects discovered by students from Suwon University and Hyupsung University using Hwaseong City's urban data. Based on the cooperation of 'H-AIDA (Hwaseong City AI·DATA Alliance)' involving the city, research institutions, industrial support agencies, and universities, it is significant that innovative ideas and technology from local university students were developed into practical solutions for addressing urban issues.

The 'AI Champion Results Sharing Meeting' featured civil servants who completed Hwaseong City's AI Champion education program presenting products they developed to directly address challenges in the administrative field, and sharing their development experience and future operational application plans. Service demonstrations were also conducted in the event venue lobby so attendees could review the results.

The city selected a total of 17 outstanding results—six from the citizens and civil servants category, eight from the university students category, and three from the AI Champion category—and awarded 13 mayoral awards and four Hwaseong Research Institute Director awards.

The city plans to review the usability and necessary improvements of the discovered apps and programs, and to operate high-applicability projects as actual services by linking them with the infrastructure of the 'Hwaseong Problem-Solving Urban Data Platform.' Additionally, the city will share excellent cases and development experiences to enhance AI utilization capabilities across the public service sector and continue cooperation in problem-solving with the local community.

Park Seung-hyun, Director of the AI Smart Strategy Office, stated, "This challenge is significant in that it goes beyond simply learning and experiencing artificial intelligence, providing an arena for citizens, university students, and civil servants to directly solve problems found in their daily lives and administrative field," and added, "Among the ideas discovered in this challenge, those with high potential for utilization will be linked with the urban data platform to lead to services and administrative innovation that citizens can actually experience."