KAIST

< Group Photo of the Awards Ceremony >

KAIST has announced that the awards ceremony for the ‘2025 Foreign Disinformation Response Idea Competition for University Students (Counter-Disinformation Challenge),’ organized by the Institute for Security Convergence in collaboration with the National Intelligence Service (NIS), is scheduled to be held on the afternoon of the 23rd at the KAIST Munji Campus.

This competition, held for the second time since its inaugural launch last year, was established to inform the public about the current state of the creation and spread of foreign disinformation and its resulting social and national harms, as well as to seek future response measures. It solicited practical ideas covering both technology and policy from university students and the general public.

Based on the awareness of the issues raised through last year’s competition, our university focused this year on strengthening the link between technology and policy and discovering ideas that can lead to actual research and development (R&D) and institutional improvements. Through this, the university plans to establish the foundation for a mid-to-long-term strategy for responding to foreign disinformation.

The competition was held from November 1st to December 5th in two categories: ▲ Technical ideas to prevent the spread of foreign disinformation, and ▲ Policy proposals and institutional improvement ideas to solve foreign disinformation issues. A total of 144 teams, comprising 259 university and graduate students (including those on leave) from across the country, participated.

Among them, 18 teams were selected as the final winners. This represents an improvement in both the scale of participation and the completeness of the proposals compared to last year, demonstrating the high level of interest among the youth in responding to foreign disinformation.

The awards consist of: ▲ Technical Idea category: 1 Grand Prize, 3 First Prizes, 5 Excellence Prizes; ▲ Policy Proposal and Institutional Improvement category: 1 Grand Prize, 3 First Prizes, 5 Excellence Prizes.

The Grand Prize (KAIST President's Award) in the ‘Technical Idea for Disinformation Response’ category will be awarded to Team ‘Lemming,’ composed of students Lee Jun, Kang Yun-ah, and Ma Seon-young from Jeju National University. Team Lemming proposed a technology that utilizes multi-persona AI agents to virtually simulate the creation, spread, and response processes of disinformation.

Additionally, the Grand Prize (KAIST President's Award) in the ‘Policy Proposal and Institutional Improvement for Disinformation Response’ category will be awarded to Team ‘Kim Anbo Girls,’ composed of student Kim Yeon-jung from Jungwon University and student Kim Hyun-jin from Baekseok Arts University.

Bae Joong-myeon, Director of the KAIST Institute for Security Convergence, stated, “Foreign disinformation is a future-type security threat where technology, policy, and society are complexly intertwined. We plan to link the students’ ideas to future R&D and policy reviews through collaboration with the National Intelligence Service and the Cyber Security Research Center of the KAIST Institute for Security Convergence.”

Meanwhile, the National Intelligence Service, which sponsored this competition, has been accepting reports of foreign disinformation 24 hours a day, 365 days a year through the ‘111 Reporting Center’ and its official website since September 2024, and is promoting the strengthening of an integrated response system through cooperation with related organizations.

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