The "Coco" team, consisting of students Jongwon Kim, Juhyun Park, Jayoung Woo and Suhyun Jeon (Department of Information Technology and Engineering) and mentor Jinsoo Kim from Kakao Enterprise, won the Minister of Science and ICT's Award (Gold Prize) in the Pro Bono ICT Competition at the recent "2021 ICT Mentoring Expo," hosted by the Ministry of Science and ICT and organized by the Institute for Information and Communications Technology Planning and Evaluation (IITP).

Pro Bono ICT Mentoring is an ICT talent development program in which industry professionals (mentors) and university students (mentees) form teams to develop and donate ICT products and services aimed at improving the quality of life for marginalized groups such as people with disabilities and the elderly. In this Pro Bono ICT Mentoring competition, a total of 20 projects, including the grand prize, received awards, among them the Minister's Award from the Ministry of Science and ICT and representative awards from related organizations.

The Coco team carried out a project targeting deaf parents who face difficulties in childcare because they cannot hear. They combined open-source hardware and an Android-based mobile application to develop a childcare assistive device called the "Sudden Infant Death Prevention System for the Hearing Impaired," which detects various hazards and provides non-auditory alerts to deaf parents.

The system, named "PODO (Prevention Of sudden Death Of newborns for deaf parents)," not only helps prevent risks such as suffocation and falls in advance but also recognizes sounds around the newborn's bed and processes them through deep learning to distinguish crying from ambient noise, effectively serving as the ears of deaf parents.

In addition, various risk notifications detected at the crib are delivered simultaneously to a mobile application and a smart wristwatch, enabling rapid response. This feature received considerable praise.

The Coco team said, "We are pleased that our eight-month-long project has concluded with good results. Currently, childcare assistive devices for people with disabilities are not readily available. We hope this project will serve as a foundation for further development so that socially marginalized groups can enjoy more convenient lives."

Meanwhile, Jeonbuk National University (JBNU) Department of Information Technology and Engineering offers various design courses each semester to enhance students' design capabilities and competitiveness, and actively supports on- and off-campus competitions. Through these efforts, the department's undergraduates participate in competitions every year and achieve strong results.