Ji Minhwan vs. Kang Sangyoon
Once it passed 3 a.m., people who had fallen asleep began appearing here and there.
So they really hadn’t handed out blankets and pillows for nothing.
Of course, not a single person on our team was asleep.
“What time’s the deadline again?”
“9:30.”
“Then we can sleep for about three hours.”
“We’ll be done by 6, right?”
“If we don’t get greedy.”
“Then we’ll be done by 7.”
Fortunately, all of us still had energy left in reserve.
It was the kind of project that would’ve been impossible to finish in less than three sleepless days if I’d left it to other people, so that mental toughness was a huge help.
My teammates were incredible. Instead of running from the pressure, they treated it as something they could force their way through.
My luck with coworkers really was excellent.
Just as I was feeling smug about that, an extremely unpleasant voice came from behind me.
“You guys don’t even shit?”
It was Ji Minhwan.
The smell of cigarettes was thick on him, so he must have come straight over after smoking.
“What?”
The four of us all half-closed our laptops and glared at Ji Minhwan.
We were blocking him from seeing our monitors.
He might try something stupid.
“Hey, are you saving your work right now or what?”
But Ji Minhwan only sneered at our reaction.
Still, none of us had even a trace of amusement left in us.
“Forget it. There’s no way this idiot can remember what he’s looking at.”
I let out a dry laugh and reopened my laptop screen.
The others beside me followed one by one.
“Yeah, seriously. If nobody’s there to hold his hand, he can’t do anything.”
“He’ll probably mess around with development again and hit the spacebar twice by accident.”
“What’d you say?”
Right. What could he even copy at this point?
There wasn’t enough here to memorize, let alone implement.
We all ignored Ji Minhwan in perfect unison, and after standing there for a while, he marched off toward his own team.
“He’s walking away looking so pissed.”
“Let him. Tell him to get worked up and make a mistake.”
“Hey. Even if we finish our work by 6, let’s review until 7.”
“Siwon, is there any screen we need for the presentation?”
“No. I’ll tell you if we need one.”
Everyone shook off Ji Minhwan’s provocation better than I’d expected.
Thanks to that, I was able to focus on making the presentation materials right away without overthinking it.
“Thank you all for submitting your materials. After breakfast, we’ll begin the presentations in the designated order. Please pick up the lunch boxes at the back, enjoy a good meal, and then show us a great presentation.”
As soon as the host finished speaking, the students who were still half-asleep one by one got up and went to collect their lunch boxes.
“Ugh, I’m so tired.”
“We kept revising until the end and only got two hours of sleep.”
“I told you to sleep.”
“You didn’t sleep either.”
Kim Siwon’s team also ate their lunch boxes while half dozing off.
Still, because they were so satisfied with what they had produced, everyone had a faint smile on their faces.
“Can’t we just launch this as-is?”
“I heard they’re going to give investment support and a bunch of other things to the winners.”
“As soon as we get the money, we should jump straight into clinical trials and file the patents.”
“Didn’t we dump Shin Dongjin professor’s money into those two things the second we got it for the animal X-ray too? Should we do that again?”
“Since this is a medical device for humans, we need to sink in even more money and time, fast.”
While we were having that optimistic conversation, this year’s hackathon judges were also seated and eating their lunch boxes.
As expected, one of them had been planted there through Ji Minhwan’s father’s connections. One out of four wasn’t a small proportion. And if someone in the judging panel started fanning the flames early with a “This is really good, isn’t it?” among a field of middling ideas, the final results were bound to be affected.
“Since a large company is hosting it, the participating teams are certainly strong.”
“Most of them are from Korea University, aren’t they? I guess students from other schools didn’t really join in.”
“Well, it is a competition hosted jointly by Korea University and JH Medical.”
The judges chatted among themselves in a pleasant atmosphere.
Kang Sangyoon was among them.
And all of them were smiling as they looked over the list of teams scheduled to present, their faces full of expectation.
“Then we’ll begin with the first team. Team M&D, please come up on stage.”
And with that, time passed until each team’s presentation slot arrived.
The first team went up with stiff, nervous expressions and began their presentation.
What technology they had conceived, why they had chosen it, how it would be implemented, what effects they expected from it, and so on.
The flow and the content themselves were ordinary enough.
But the judges’ expressions were indifferent.
“It’s decent.”
“Yes. Right. It’s decent.”
The problem was that it was only decent.
An ordinary team with no serious preliminary research and no remarkable differentiation.
They were in exactly the right position to get attacked.
“A similar service to what you’ve just presented is already on the market, as far as I know. What’s your advantage over the competition?”
“Huh? Competition?”
“Yes. Based on your proposal, the big corporations are your competitors.”
“Uh, um. Could you tell us which company you mean? We couldn’t find anything when we looked.”
At the presenter’s nervous answer, everyone wore a look of pity.
It was the sort of response that could only push them farther from winning.
But the other teams’ presentations that followed weren’t any better.
“So how exactly is this idea supposed to solve medical inequality?”
“The intent is good, but there’s no business model at all. Are you planning to cover everything with government subsidies?”
“As far as I know, this can’t actually be carried out under current domestic law. Am I wrong?”
Gradually, the judges’ expressions turned colder.
All they did while listening was nod a few times to hide their boredom.
These were judges who had reviewed countless university contests and competitions before.
And yet, because they had been expecting a lot from this event, they had begun to let go of that expectation when they realized this place was no different from the rest.
“Next is the presentation by Team Siren Solution. Please come up on stage.”
Then it was Ji Minhwan’s team’s turn, the team many people had been watching with less-than-kind eyes.
Ji Minhwan stood on the stage with a brazen expression, completely unbothered by the frosty atmosphere.
“Hello. I’m Ji Minhwan, team leader and presenter for Team Siren Solution.”
After that confident introduction, Ji Minhwan began presenting his team’s idea.
It was one of the ideas recommended by his father’s acquaintances.
“Everyone. Have you heard of something called telemedicine?”
The service Ji Minhwan’s team introduced was a telemedicine service.
Telemedicine.
A doctor treating a patient remotely, without being in the same place.
The core idea was to reduce the medical service gap between regions by providing easy-to-access telemedicine to people living in areas with too few hospitals or poor transportation.
“Until now, we haven’t been able to do telemedicine. Why? Because remote diagnosis through a phone camera screen and the like has been difficult to begin with.”
The content itself wasn’t bad.
At the very least, the keyword “telemedicine” was fairly fresh for the present day.
On top of that, they had built their own point of differentiation well.
Even if the phone photos were low-resolution, if there were preexisting images of a wound or medical data, the AI would track the differences and help with diagnosis.
In many ways, it was solid.
Of all the presentations so far, this was the most convincing one.
“Hey. Isn’t that a little too innovative? It feels like something even most sci-fi movies wouldn’t touch.”
“The idea’s good, and it seems like it could actually be implemented decently. Even if the AI’s accuracy drops a bit, telemedicine itself feels like such a good idea.”
“Where the hell did that bastard buy this idea from?”
For that reason, Kim Siwon’s teammates looked anxious as they listened.
The other teams looked no better. Their faces had grown dark too.
They thought a strong opponent had just appeared.
But only Kim Siwon shook his head and said calmly, “No. There’s no way JH Medical would actually like that.”
It was the certainty that could only come from having already seen and lived through the history of telemedicine as a technology.
“Doesn’t it sound like a good idea?”
“The U.S. Teladoc case he introduced is interesting too.”
“It seems good for use in Korea now, and later it could expand overseas too.”
The judges’ reactions were, on the whole, favorable.
Because so many teams had fumbled badly before them, Ji Minhwan’s team stood out even more.
As soon as the judge with connections to Ji Minhwan’s side opened the floor, everyone began applauding in agreement.
“Hmm. Well.”
However, as Kim Siwon had predicted, Kang Sangyoon’s expression was poor.
“That concludes the presentation. If you have any questions, please ask.”
Just as Ji Minhwan finished with a satisfied expression, Kang Sangyoon picked up the microphone.
“Yes. It seems you prepared hard.”
Ji Minhwan took that as JH Medical’s approval of their idea.
In Kang Sangyoon’s mind, that was absolutely not the case.
“Hmm. I have so much to say that I’m not sure where to start.”
“Ah, please, go ahead!”
“All right. Let me ask you this: do you think the doctors would like this idea? I’m curious whether any survey or the like was done beforehand.”
Ji Minhwan’s eyes rolled at the oddly abrupt question.
“Uh, no survey was done with doctors specifically. But I think they’d have no choice but to like it. They’d be able to see more patients faster.”
“You think doctors would like telemedicine?”
“Yes. At the very least, I don’t think they’d oppose commercializing it.”
“Really? I’d think they’d stage protests instead.”
Only then did Ji Minhwan’s heart drop.
Too much to say.
He realized that every single thing hidden inside those words would be bad news for him.