Teams from the Business Data Analysis Club "INSIGHT" Win Grand Prize in AI/Data Utilization and Excellence Prize in Data Analysis at the 13th Big Contest 2025

▲ (From left) Kim Ilho (Comm '21), representative of the Grand Prize team; Moon Kunwoo (Chinese '20), representative of the Excellence Prize team.

On Wednesday, December 17, teams from the Business Data Analysis Club INSIGHT at Sogang Business School were honored with the Grand Prize (Minister of Science and ICT Award) and the Excellence Prize (Shinhan Card CEO Award) at the "13th Big Contest 2025 AI & Data Competition," hosted by the Korea Association for ICT Promotion (KAIT) and the AI Data Forum.

Sponsored by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the National Information Society Agency (NIA), the "Big Contest" is a premier domestic competition aimed at discovering AI and data-driven ideas and talent. This year’s competition, co-organized by institutions including Shinhan Card, presented challenges such as "AI Secret Consultant to Save My Store" and "Detecting Crisis Signals in Local Merchants" to support small business owners through AI and data analysis.

Grand Prize in AI/Data Utilization: Team "Jinjja Insight"

Members: Kim Ilho (Comm '21), Yeon Dongun (Biz '20), Cho Youngjin (Econ '20), Choi Gaeun (Biz '21)

The Grand Prize-winning team, "Jinjja Insight," proposed a "Context Design-Based Marketing Strategy Recommendation Service." To assist small business owners in utilizing data, the team applied "Context Engineering" to analyze both internal and external store data.

They designed an AI Agent system that automatically generates customized marketing reports by combining Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) technology—utilizing dining trend reports—with clustering models based on sales and customer metrics.

Excellence Prize in Data Analysis: Team "Insight"

Members: Moon Kunwoo (Chinese '20), Kim Minji (Biz '21), Hwang Jongbin (M&E '20), Yoon Haemin (Biz '21)

The Excellence Prize-winning team, "Insight," developed an "AI Early Warning System for Small Business Owners through Survival Analysis." To overcome the limitations of traditional classification models, the team introduced "Time-Varying Cox" and "Machine Learning Survival Analysis" techniques.

Through this approach, they built a system that predicts the likelihood of closure or crisis in the coming months and diagnoses the causes of such crises from multiple perspectives using the 4M (Mega, Macro, Meso, Micro) framework.

Kim Ilho (Comm '21) of team "Jinjja Insight" shared, "We aimed to bridge the gap for small business owners who have plenty of data but find analysis difficult by using an AI Agent. By applying RAG and context compression to reduce LLM hallucinations, we experienced the true value of data and AI while deriving actionable strategies that store owners can use immediately. I am thrilled that our close collaboration led to this valuable result."

Moon Kunwoo (Chinese '20) of team "Insight" remarked, "In a highly imbalanced situation with very few actual closure data points, we worked intensely on survival analysis methodologies to explain not just 'if' but 'when and why' a store might be at risk. It is rewarding to have the potential of our early warning system recognized, and I hope to continue contributing to society through data utilization."

▲ Group photo of the award-winning teams.