Students from an academic club of the Division of Electronic Engineering won the Excellence Award for an outstanding idea at the 2021 Challenge·Korea Contest recently held by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety and the Ministry of Environment.

The contest is a nationwide idea competition launched last year by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety to solicit public proposals for solutions to future societal issues in Korea. This year, the competition offered total prize money of 500 million won and requested ideas on 15 social problem topics.

At the contest, the Division of Electronic Engineering academic club 'Display Your Dream (DYD)' team — Sim Seung-hyeon, Jeong Ji-ung, Nam Eun-seo, and Bae Yun-jae — proposed a technology entitled "A Method for Separate Collection and Disposal of Transparent PET Bottles Using Point Accumulation via QR Codes and an App, and Collection Bags Made from Recycled Transparent PET Bottles."

The idea received high praise from the judges as a concept that could more easily encourage proper separation and disposal of PET bottles, which is an environmental concern.

Sim Seung-hyeon said, "There were trials and difficulties, but each time the team came together, and with much help from our professors I was able to learn know-how such as creative thinking and problem-solving skills. It was a very meaningful contest because it helped me develop the insight to intuitively see the fundamental causes of problems."

Meanwhile, DYD of the Division of Electronic Engineering (President Kim Seok-gi; faculty adviser Lee Ji-hoon) is in its third year since establishment. This academic club has raised its competitiveness by having three teams win consecutive national competitions this year, including the Grand Prize in the KEPCO KDN National Contest and the K-Water President's Award in the Korea Water Resources Corporation National 'Water Big Data' Contest, followed by the Excellence Award at the Ministry of the Interior and Safety contest.