Won't you become a hacker? (opens in new tab)

Hack Day 2025 serves as a cornerstone of LY Corporation’s engineering culture, bringing together diverse global teams to innovate beyond their daily operational scopes. By fostering a high-intensity environment focused on creative freedom, the event facilitates technical growth and strengthens interpersonal bonds across international branches. This 19th edition demonstrated how rapid prototyping and cross-functional collaboration can transform abstract ideas into functional AI-driven prototypes within a strict 24-hour window.

Structure and Participation Dynamics

• The hackathon follows a "9 to 9" format, providing exactly 24 hours of development time followed by a day for presentations and awards.
• Participation is inclusive of all roles, including developers, designers, planners, and HR staff, allowing for holistic product development.
• Teams can be "General Teams" from the same legal entity or "Global Mixed Teams" comprising members from different regions like Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and Vietnam.
• The Developer Relations (DevRel) team facilitates team building for remote employees using digital collaboration tools like Zoom and Miro.

AI-Powered Personality Analysis Project

• The author's team developed a "Scouter" program inspired by Dragon Ball, designed to measure professional "combat power" based on communication history.
• The system utilizes Slack bots and AI models to analyze message logs and map them to the Big 5 Personality traits (Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism).
• Professional metrics are visualized as game-like character statistics to make personality insights engaging and less intimidating.
• While the original plan involved using AI to generate and print physical character cards, hardware failures with photo printers forced a technical pivot to digital file downloads.

High-Pressure Presentation and Networking

• Every team is allotted a strict 90-second window to pitch their product and demonstrate a live demo.
• The "90-second rule" includes a mandatory microphone cutoff to maintain momentum and keep the large-scale event engaging for all attendees.
• Dedicated booth sessions follow the presentations, allowing participants to provide hands-on experiences to colleagues and judges.
• The event emphasizes "Perfect the Details," a core company value, by encouraging teams to utilize all available resources—from whiteboards to AI image generators—within the time limit.

Environmental Support and Culture

• The event occupies an entire office floor, providing a high-density yet comfortable environment designed to minimize distractions during the "Hack Time."
• Cultural exchange is encouraged through "humanity snacks," where participants from different global offices share local treats in dedicated rest areas.
• Strategic scheduling, such as "Travel Days" for international participants, ensures that teams can focus entirely on technical execution once the event begins.

Participating in internal hackathons provides a vital platform for testing new technologies—like LLMs and personality modeling—that may not fit into immediate product roadmaps. For organizations with hybrid work models, these intensive in-person events are highly recommended to bridge the communication gap and build lasting trust between global teammates.