2026 Jeju RISE·AWS Global Space Bootcamp and Hackathon

The 2026 Jeju RISE·AWS Global Space Bootcamp, co-hosted by Jeju Special Self-Governing Province, Cheju Halla University, and Amazon Web Services (AWS), held its opening ceremony on January 5 and officially launched a 7-week training program.

The bootcamp was organized as part of the Regional Innovation System & Education (RISE) initiative led by the Ministry of Education and the National Research Foundation of Korea, aiming to nurture future aerospace talent centered in Jeju and foster a globally collaborative educational ecosystem.

The opening ceremony was attended by key officials including Lee Young-jun, Deputy Director of the RISE Project at Cheju Halla University; Kim Nam-jin, Director of the Innovation Industry Bureau of Jeju Province; Kim Ki-hong, Head of the Space Mobility Division; Lee Young-eun, Senior Account Manager for Public Sector at AWS Korea; and Park Jae-sun, Director of ESTsoft Inc.

7-Week Hybrid Training

The bootcamp ran from December 21, 2025 to February 4, 2026 in a hybrid format over seven weeks. After completing two weeks of online pre-training, participants joined on-site education in Jeju, which was held over two weeks each at ESTsoft’s Jeju Campus and Cheju Halla University.

A total of 50 participants were selected from university students interested in aerospace regardless of major or nationality — 20 from Jeju, 20 from outside Jeju, and 10 international students — creating a multinational, multidisciplinary collaborative learning environment.

Hands-On Curriculum

The curriculum was designed with a practical focus, featuring a space design workshop by Stanford University’s d.school team, AWS’s “Working Backward” innovation methodology, and aerospace data analysis using AWS cloud services. Lectures and mentoring from domestic aerospace companies such as Teleepixx and Naraspace were also included.

Hackathon — 48 Hours of Real-World Challenge

The RISE Project at Cheju Halla University (Director: Ko Seok-yong) held the 2026 Jeju RISE·AWS Global Space Bootcamp Hackathon over two days from February 2 (Mon) to 3 (Tue) at the Halla Convention Center. A total of 46 bootcamp trainees and 78 overall participants joined an intensive project sprint.

The hackathon focused on participants selecting real Jeju issues, redefining problems, and building working prototypes using satellite and spatial data within the AWS cloud environment.

Teams formed around high-demand Jeju topics such as disaster response, marine and environmental change detection, smart agriculture, and tourism and traffic flow analysis, completing the full process from data analysis and model design to service architecture within a limited timeframe.

Notably, the hackathon was designed with a goal of “results-driven demonstration” rather than process-oriented learning, using real-world applicability as the evaluation criterion instead of presentation-only ideas.

Global Forum and Future Plans

The project outcomes from the hackathon were presented at the 2026 Jeju RISE·AWS Global Space Forum held on February 4 (Tue), where comprehensive evaluations were conducted based on feasibility for solving Jeju’s local issues and technical completeness. Outstanding projects are planned to be expanded into industry-linked demonstrations, follow-up projects, and employment and startup programs.

Lee Young-jun, Deputy Director of the RISE Project at Cheju Halla University, said, “We hope this bootcamp, where local government, industry, and academia work together, will serve as a stepping stone for Jeju to become a hub for global aerospace talent development,” adding that “this hackathon is not an extension of education, but a real-world proving ground.”

The response from participants was enthusiastic. One student said that working with teammates from completely different majors on satellite data was an eye-opening experience, while an international participant noted that despite differences in language and background, coding through the night together during the hackathon forged a genuine team bond. A Jeju-based student shared that meeting peers from across the country and abroad completely changed their perspective, and gave them confidence that technology can solve local problems. Another participant expressed deep satisfaction with the program overall, saying the connections made over seven weeks in Jeju would last a lifetime.