- The Xdoctors team won the Minister of Science and ICT  Award at the hackathon, and doctoral student Shin Won-hyung won the NRF President’s Award at the research presentation session

  Researchers participating in the DS Plus Next-Generation Convergence Talent Development Project Team at the University of Seoul demonstrated their outstanding data-science research capabilities by winning numerous awards—including the Minister of Science and ICT Award and the NRF President’s Award—at the “2026 K-DATA SCIENCE Conference & Hackathon,” which attracted approximately 300 students and researchers from universities nationwide, including 10 graduate schools.

  Hosted by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the National Research Foundation of Korea, this event provided a platform for students and researchers from universities across the country to share their research achievements and compete in solving real-world problems using artificial intelligence and data science. The event included a hackathon and conference; the conference featured research presentations, poster sessions, and a discussion forum on the advancement of data science.

△ Group photograph from the competition

  In the hackathon category, the Xdoctors team—comprising doctoral student Lim Jae-sung and master’s students Kim Ji-hye and Yoon Ye-jin (advisor: Professor Jong-June Jeon)—won the Minister of Science and ICT Award for developing an explanatory clinical decision support system capable of linking evidence and suspending judgment. During the research-presentation session, doctoral student Shin Won-hyung presented a study titled, “Hawkes-Driven Popularity-Aware Sampling for Contrastive Recommendation Learning,” which received the President’s Award from the National Research Foundation of Korea. Additionally, undergraduate students from the University of Seoul received the Excellence Award and the Creativity Award in the hackathon category, while a participating researcher won the Future Research Award in the conference category, thus earning recognition for both their research capabilities and practical problem-solving skills.

△ Photograph of Xdoctors team and doctoral student Shin Won-hyung receiving their awards

  The DS Plus Next-Generation Convergence Talent Development Project Team provides multifaceted support—including not only research activities but also academic exchanges, presentations of research outcomes, participation in domestic and international academic events and competitions—to enhance the research and problem-solving capabilities of master’s and doctoral students .

  Changyi Park, Director of the Project Team, stated, “This achievement stems from the research capabilities and ambition that students have developed through the Project Team’s educational and research support,” adding, “This award validates the Project Team’s commitment to providing systematic educational and research support for driving student success. Moving forward, we will continue to actively support students such that they can generate outstanding research that addresses real-world societal and industrial challenges. Through these efforts, we aim to cultivate the next generation of interdisciplinary data-science talent,” he added.

△ Changyi Park, Director of the DS Plus Next-Generation Talent Development Project Team