Elice Group said on Oct. 27 it has successfully wrapped up Make-thon, an agent AI hackathon under the 2026 AI Companion Project.

The event was held as part of the 2026 AI Companion Project, hosted by the Ministry of Science and ICT and organised by the Korea Foundation for the Advancement of Science and Creativity. It took place on Sept. 19 to 20 at Konkuk University in Seoul and KT Human Resources Development Institute in Daejeon. A total of 161 students from 21 middle and high schools nationwide participated in 38 teams.

Under the slogan, "AI we learned, AI we need," students developed AI agents to solve everyday problems such as eco-friendly waste recycling, easing the digital divide and support for the high school credit system.

Elice Group served as the lead organiser for the agent AI track among five tracks, overseeing planning and operations. It provided all participating students with its in-house AI coding agent, Helpicode, and supported development of AI agents based on vibe coding.

Students carried out a five-stage mission based on the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals, from identifying problems to understanding users, role and safety design, and implementation and verification. It presented tailored tasks by school level, including reproducing input and output and applying safety patterns for middle school participants, and linking external application programming interfaces for high school participants.

Participants plan to refine their projects through future self-directed inquiry mentoring. They will also share results at events including a demo day and an AI education festival.

Soo-in Kim (김수인), chief revenue officer at Elice Group, said, "This Make-thon was meaningful in that students directly thought about real-life and social issues and tried applying AI agents to problem-solving." Kim said, "We will continue to contribute to strengthening AI capabilities of future generations through AX solutions, including Helpicode."