The Busan IT Industry Promotion Agency (Vice President Kim Jun Soo, hereafter BIPA) has successfully concluded the ‘ASEAN-ROK Youth Metaverse Idea Contest focusing on Cultural Heritage’ with offline final round and an award ceremony.

This Idea Contest is organized by BIPA, NIPA, and ASEAN-ROK Working Committee on Cultural Heritage Cooperation, and sponsored by MICT and Busan Metropolitan City. Its aim was to discover ideas related to ‘cultural heritage and tourism’ that can be commercialized by utilizing XR and metaverse technologies of ASEAN youth. The goal was to promote and activate XR technology awareness.

In last August, 183 participants(48 teams and 21 individuals) from 10 ASEAN nations competed for 4 weeks for online round engaging presentation and lecutures/activities on the metaverse platform 'a:rz Meta' for the final round in Busan.

As a result, 5 teams ▲Creative Potatoes (Malaysia) ▲KYAT (Myanmar) ▲LASALLE (Singapore) ▲Tom Yum Goong (Thailand) ▲Cú Mèo (Vietnam) were shortlisted and invited to Busan from November 5th to November 11th, for the offline final round. These teams went through lectures, mentoring services, cultural heritage tour in Gyeongju, XR·Metaverse tour in Busan, activities, and final presentation.

Based on the final presentation, Team Cú Mèo (Vietnam) was the WINNER(development project of Vietnamese cultural heritage through the integration of art, fashion, and metaverse strategies), while team Tom Yum Goong (Thailand) became the RUNNER-UP(integrating virtual travel guides, AR navigation, and platforms that integrate smart cities).

Tan Ghee Tiong, the Head of Culture and Information Division of the ASEAN Secretariat who also served as a judge the final presentation, personally conducted the award ceremony. Particularly for the winner, there will be a special opportunity to present their winning project at the 3rd Working Committee Meeting for ASEAN-ROK Cultural Heritage Cooperation scheduled in December, in Chiang Rai, Thailand.

Kim Jun Soo, Vice President of BIPA expressed its commitment to continue striving for the spread of new technologies among ASEAN youth and for the mutual growth of the ICT, XR, and metaverse industries between Korea and ASEAN by means of various projects, including the 'ASEAN-ROK Youth Metaverse Idea Contest on Cultural Heritage‘

The 'ASEAN-ROK ICT Convergence Village's project has been sponsored by the Ministry of Science and ICT and Busan Metropolitan City since 2020, run by the National IT Industry Promotion Agency. It aims to expand ASEAN-ROK ICT exchange and mutual growth of XR industries. Through various infrastructure and production support projects based on domestic ICT convergence technology, the project promotes joint collaboration between ASEAN-ROK XR industries.