The FIDO Alliance has wrapped up its Hackathon in Korea. Carried out by the Alliance’s Korea Working Group, the Hackathon was first announced back in July, leading up to final evaluations at the Samsung Seoul R&D Campus on September 6. The process concluded with an awards ceremony at the FIDO Seoul Seminar later that month.

The Hackathon received more than 40 applications. The teams were primarily made of up students or young startup professionals in the early stages of their careers, all pitching unique tech solutions based on FIDO protocols.

The applicants were eventually whittled down to 12 finalists, each of which was paired with a corporate partner for a three-month mentorship program to develop their initial concept. Sponsors included heavy hitters like Samsung, Yubico, and eWBM.

The solutions addressed everything from secure logins to decentralized identity, facilitating applications like merchandise payments for social media influencers and umbrella sharing on rainy days. The winners, however, were Team Jekyll & Hyde, Team N-Key, and TEEware, which were mentored by Samsung, LINE, and CrossCert, respectively.

The Hackathon itself was set up to kickstart innovation, to the benefit of both the participating teams and their mentoring corporations. The mentors received a shot of energy from young engineers with the talent and drive to realize creative new ideas, while the teams received invaluable resources, support, and real-world experience that will allow them to deliver on those concepts.

“The way we do projects at school were very different from how things were done in the field,” explained Jekyll & Hyde representative Yeojin Lee. “We had to build a bridge between what we know as academic theory and how things are actually done in business.” 

“By participating in the Hackathon, we were able to study the feasibility of our product and closely listen to potential clients’ needs,” added TEEware’s Nohyun Kawk.

The participants indicated that many of the projects could be published or become fully realized products in the months and years ahead. The Hackathon was set up as part of an ongoing effort to promote the adoption of FIDO security protocols in South Korea.