Hashed Wraps Up OpenAI-Sponsored OBA Weekendthon for AI Builders

Global venture capital firm Hashed said June 5 that OBA Weekendthon, a builder event it co-hosted with MarketFitLab and vooy, concluded successfully. The overnight event was held at Kakao AI Campus on May 30 and May 31.

OBA stands for Open Builders Alliance, and OpenAI participated as the main sponsor. The event focused on helping Korean builders reduce reliance on closed API environments and overseas platforms. Its core goal was to create practical links among Korea's public APIs, open-source projects and the AI builder ecosystem.

About 50 people took part. Alongside OpenAI, Nexon, GS Neotek, GGUI and LG Uplus joined as premium sponsors. FuriosaAI, Kakao and DLH Law Firm participated as infrastructure, venue and legal partners, respectively.

Co-organizer MarketFitLab led planning and operations based on experience providing AI transformation, or AX, training to more than 250 companies. Vooy is an AI agent project incubated by Hashed. Organizers described OBA Weekendthon not as a competition-centered hackathon but as an experiment in collaborative building culture. The event emphasized rapid learning, sharing and collective growth over polish, and judging focused on how actively teams used APIs and open-source tools.

Awards were split between a main track and sponsor tracks. Lucky Matching, an AI travel recommendation agent, won first place in the main track and received $24,000 worth of OpenAI credits. The service analyzes saju and the five elements to recommend tailored travel destinations, then connects users to actual products from MyRealTrip through a generative user interface. Second place went to Sil, a proactive AI accountant that automates settlement for government R&D subsidies. Third place went to Meshkit, an execution network that calls functions across apps and verifies them with signatures.

In the sponsor tracks, premium sponsors selected standout teams and awarded each 1 million won, or about $725. Nexon's track selected Drift Copilot, a voice-based driving coaching service. LG Uplus chose Sai, which creates date and social outing itineraries. GS Neotek picked Approval Flow, a purchase approval processing service. GGUI selected Jieum, which builds screens by reading user intent.

Hashed Chief Executive Officer Kim Seo-jun said he wanted to move beyond the traditional hackathon format focused only on results and create a space where builders could understand one another and build together. He added that he hopes the event will serve as a starting point for rapid growth in Korea's public API and open-source ecosystem.