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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.