Students from the third SEA:ME cohort at Kookmin University (President Jung Seung-ryul) won second place at the Eclipse SDV Hackathon held in Karlsruhe, Germany from November 20 to 22, 2024. This competition, which utilizes Eclipse's open source software and SDV (Software Defined Vehicle) tools, is a competition that pits innovative ideas that will open up the future of automotive technology against each other. The APT team, which includes KIM Seung-joo, YEO Han-bin, and LEE Eun-ji from the Department of Automotive IT Convergence at Kookmin University, received great attention at the hackathon with their excellent performance of coming in second place.

The challenge chosen by the 'APT' team was the 'Sunken Kitchen Challenge', which was to design a system that increases the safety of vehicles using various Eclipse SDV tools. The students developed a system that can prevent accidents by informing the driver in real time of variables such as traffic accidents and weather.

Each team member said that they had a lot of difficulties and challenges in the Eclipse tool and the hackathon environment, which they were new to, but they learned a lot from the process. In particular, they said that they were able to feel the importance of solving problems through cross-disciplinary knowledge and collaboration by practicing how to define and control automotive technology software through the Eclipse SDV platform. They also said, “We were very happy to get a good result of second place.”

The Eclipse SDV Hackathon is not just a competition, but a place to discover innovative ideas that will lead the way in future automotive technology. Students from Kookmin University, who are participating in the third SEA:ME, have achieved outstanding results by using various tools and technologies to prevent accidents that could occur on real roads and by designing a system that can respond quickly in emergency situations. The experience and knowledge gained from this hackathon will serve as a foundation for the students to overcome the many challenges they will face in the future. Second place at the Eclipse SDV Hackathon 2024 marked an important turning point in the future of automotive technology that they will create, and showed the potential for them to achieve more in the future.

Meanwhile, the SEA:ME (Software Engineering in Automotive and Mobility Ecosystem) program is a global software talent development program supported by the Volkswagen Group's foundation to foster future automotive software talent. Students are sent to Wolfsburg, Germany, where the Volkswagen Group's headquarters are located, for 12 months to learn about embedded systems, autonomous driving systems, and the mobility ecosystem. The project has been in operation for three years since 2022, with Kookmin University, the host university of the Future Automobile Consortium, at its center.