Jeonbuk National University (JBNU) Department of Smart Farm 'Kodari' team (Team Leader Chae Kyung-won · 4th-year undergraduate) recently won the Chairperson's Award of the Korea Copyright Commission in the startup idea planning category and the Big Data Innovation Convergence Project Group Director's Award (Excellence Award) simultaneously at the "5th AI & Public Data Utilization and Startup Competition" held at Gyeongsang National University.

The competition was organized by the Jinju Regional AI and Data Utilization Activation Council. A total of 101 teams and 215 participants competed. Nine organizations, including the Korea Land Safety Management Institute, participated and offered prize money totaling KRW 18 million to discover a range of creative ideas.

The Kodari team carried out a project titled "CODA Communication Support Service Based on Sign Language Recognition." Focusing on communication challenges faced by hearing children of deaf parents (CODA) in daily life, they proposed a practical service that combines AI-based sign language recognition technology with voice cloning technology.

In particular, the application of MediaPipe-based real-time sign language recognition and a voice conversion algorithm, and the implementation of a working prototype, received high praise from the judging panel. The project was recognized for meeting both technical completeness and social value.

The team consisted of three fourth-year Department of Smart Farm students: Chae Kyung-won, Kim Ji-hyun, and Im Seo-young. Prior to the competition, they participated in a bootcamp held at Gyeongsang National University to analyze each participating organization's key issues and solution tasks in advance. This preparatory process was evaluated as an important foundation for defining the problem and establishing solution strategies.

Meanwhile, team leader Chae Kyung-won (advised by Professor Kim Tae-gon) also developed a viewing-based personalized content recommendation service and won the Data Utilization Excellence Award in February at the "2025 Big Data Prompthon with Wanted Lab," co-hosted by the Big Data Innovation Convergence Project Group of Sookmyung Women's University and Wanted Lab.