Jeonbuk National University (JBNU) (President Yang Oh-bong)'s career club the Marketing Society 'Ggoon' received the Governor of Jeollabuk-do Award at the 2023 Jeollabuk-do Volunteers' Convention for its recent projects aimed at revitalizing community children's centers and stimulating the local economy.

The Marketing Society 'Ggoon' carried out projects to address the AI education gap in community children's centers and to revitalize underserved areas as part of the first hackathon held under the '2023 Jeonbuk Youth V-Story Project,' hosted by the Cultural Communications Cooperative and Pyeonghwa Social Welfare Center.

They divided into two teams for the project. One team planned and implemented an AI-based local-gap reduction project for children at community children's centers, and the other developed and executed a project to revitalize Jungang-dong, Iksan, using an escape-room game on the RealWorld application.

The student team that led the AI local-gap reduction project for children visited the sites in person to provide volunteer education, aiming to reduce regional disparities in AI education at a time when AI instruction is becoming increasingly important.

In the first volunteer session, they visited the Girin Community Children's Center and created easy-to-understand worksheets and PowerPoint slides to teach the children the definition of AI and what ChatGPT is. In the second session, after providing ethics education on AI use, they had the children use ChatGPT directly to create games. Evaluators noted that the activities allowed the children to engage with AI without resistance, helped prepare them for a future society where AI is dominant, and contributed to narrowing local educational disparities.

The student team that used the RealWorld app to revitalize Jungang-dong, Iksan, selected a declining area with decreasing foot traffic and conducted urban regeneration–based cultural content activities to promote unique local content. The team designed an escape-room game in which participants walk around Jungang-dong, Iksan, completing missions. To attract broad interest, they ran the event using the RealWorld application, allowing participants to visit Jungang-dong landmarks and complete missions alongside Iksan's mascot 'Marongi.' The activity received praise for promoting the area's distinctive features and charms and contributing to local development.

The students who participated in the project said, 'We believe that having the opportunity to reduce educational disparities for local children and to contribute, even in a small way, to the revitalization of underserved areas through our ideas and passionate execution is a greater achievement than this award.' They added, 'We will continue to grow as talents who help solve regional problems through diverse and innovative ideas from youth.'