KT said on Tuesday that 'Imagination Prohibited!', a picture-book project planned by its infant and children-focused IPTV service Genie TV Kidsland, won a 'special mention' in the crossmedia category at the 2026 Bologna Ragazzi Awards.

The Bologna Ragazzi Awards are organised by the Bologna International Children's Book Fair, the world's largest children's book fair, and are called the Nobel Prize of children's books. The crossmedia award covers works that expand book originals into various media.

'Imagination Prohibited!' is a project that expands imaginary animals drawn by children into a paper book, e-book, animation and media art. It was evaluated as an exemplary case of developing content by combining children's imagination with AI technology.

The project was 추진 as part of a children's writer contest held by Kidsland in 2024, titled 'Book Drawn Together 2: My Friend, an Imaginary Animal'. It brought together 20 drawings finally selected from those submitted by children and compiled them into a picture book with illustrator Kyung-kook Lee (이경국). The book was published in May 2025 through publisher Roybooks.

Kidsland then produced a book animation with animation studio Red Dog and released it exclusively on Genie TV. It also produced the 50 first-round selected works from the contest as an AI media-art series and presented it on Genie TV.

The 'Imagination Prohibited!' animation and paper book are due to be exhibited with other winning works at the Bologna International Children's Book Fair from April 13 to 16.

Kwang-chul Choi (최광철), head of KT's IPTV Business Division, said, "We will continue to make efforts by using diverse technologies so that Kidsland's strong IP can expand beyond Genie TV to multiple platforms."