The Korea Disabled Enterprises Support Center announced on November 5 that it held the final judging and awards ceremony for the 9th D-Tech (Technology & Design) Contest on November 4 at the DreamPlus Gangnam Event Hall in Seoul, in collaboration with law firm DLJ.
The D-Tech Contest aims to discover technologies and designs that can alleviate the daily inconveniences faced by people with disabilities and to facilitate their commercialization. This year, the Korea Disabled Enterprises Support Center participated as a co-host for the first time, expanding benefits for winners and actively promoting the contest to participants in disability entrepreneurship and technology commercialization support programs.
A record 151 teams entered this year's contest, reflecting significant interest. Notably, the number of teams with disabled individuals as representatives or members increased from six to 27, a 4.5-fold rise. Among the ten finalists, five teams included disabled participants, with the top incubating awards going to teams with disabled members: Healing Heart won the grand prize, and B&N Lab received the excellence award.
B&N Lab, a company founded by a person with a severe disability, received the excellence award in the incubating category for its AI document preparation assistant app, AbleFlow. The representative of B&N Lab shared that the service was developed to simplify the process of preparing documents for support program applications using only voice or photo inputs, based on the challenges faced during their entrepreneurial journey after suffering severe burns.
The grand prize in the incubating category (Director's Award from the Korea Startup Promotion Agency) was awarded to Healing Heart, which presented a 'non-screen work support technology' that enables a visually impaired business owner operating a massage parlor to manage tasks like appointment changes via voice. The Healing Heart team emphasized their commitment to incorporating real user experiences, with a nationally certified massage therapist with 40 years of experience serving as an advisor for the design.
The special award in the accelerating category (Chairman's Award from the Korea Disabled Enterprises Support Center) went to the disabled enterprise HearImpact for its ear bank service, which facilitates the circulation of hearing aids. The representative, who is a hearing-impaired individual wearing a cochlear implant, developed the platform to address the issue of hearing aids and external devices often being discarded or left unused due to legal restrictions on private resale.
The Korea Disabled Enterprises Support Center awarded a prize of 1 million won to the special award winners and provided consulting from experts in entrepreneurship and management for disabled enterprises.
In the previous year's 8th contest, a multifunctional kitchen cutting board designed for safe use by individuals with hemiplegia and an AI-based job linkage platform for people with disabilities received the Chairman's Award from the Korea Disabled Enterprises Support Center.
Park Ma-ru, Chairman of the Korea Disabled Enterprises Support Center, stated, "It is very encouraging to see increased participation from disabled individuals in a contest aimed at discovering technology for them, along with outstanding award achievements. We will expand opportunities for disabled individuals to generate ideas and develop products based on their experiences and needs, empowering them as innovators rather than mere beneficiaries of technology."
* This article has been translated by AI.
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