Students from the HUSS Environmental Consortium, in which Kookmin University (President Jeong Seung Ryeol) participates as a host institution, achieved the remarkable feat of winning the Grand Prize (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education Award) at both the Hackathon and AI Competition held as part of the ‘2025 HUSS Convergence Camp Insight’ program.

Hosted by the Ministry of Education and the National Research Foundation of Korea, this camp took place over two nights and three days from Monday, August 18 to Wednesday, August 20 at the Gonjiam Resort in Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province. Over 300 students from 41 universities nationwide participated, competing in their convergent problem-solving capabilities.

In the ‘Asking Tomorrow: Humanities and Social Sciences × AI Competition,’ aimed at cultivating convergence talent in the humanities and social sciences, 24 teams that passed the preliminary round participated, presenting AI-based solutions for addressing public issues in the digital age. Here, the ‘Heatwave Hunters’ team (Kim Jong Min (Kookmin University), Jeong Hyo Eun, Ki Na Hyun, Choi Jae Hyuk (Inha University)), won the Grand Prize and a cash award of 3 million won for their proposal titled ‘AI-Based Heatwave Shelter Gap Detection and Location Recommendation Platform – Shelter:ON’. This platform provides real-time shelter information for heatwave response. The judging panel praised it as “an outstanding proposal with high social impact, featuring excellent data-based analysis and strong potential for practical application by local governments.” Additionally, the ‘Ladybug’ team, composed of students from Duksung Women's University, won an Encouragement Award. 

In the hackathon competition, which saw participation from 50 teams, the ‘Choco It Sam’ team (Lee Won Jun (Korea), Lee Su Bin (Korea), Kim Eun Ha (Duksung), Kang Ga Yeon (Ulsan University), Kim So Young (Inha)), affiliated with the Environmental Consortium, proposed ‘NOK.ZIP – Hidden Environmental Data Collection App’ and received the Grand Prize and a cash award of 2 million won. NOK.ZIP is a ‘participatory ecological platform’ where citizens directly collect environmental data in daily life for use by governments, citizens, local authorities, and research institutions. It received high praise for its practical applicability and sustainability. An event official commented, “The Environmental Consortium students' achievements stood out not just for simple interdisciplinary collaboration, but for deriving practical solutions to social problems and translating them into actionable plans.” 

As the lead institution for the HUSS Environmental Consortium, Kookmin University is breaking down boundaries between universities and disciplines. Under the theme ‘Coexistence and Mutual Prosperity in the Era of Climate Crisis,’ it is collaborating with Duksung Women's University, Ulsan University, Inha University, and Chosun University to cultivate future-oriented humanities and social science talents equipped with problem-solving capabilities and convergent thinking through interdisciplinary education.