Welcome to the Proof of Usefulness Hackathon spotlight, curated by HackerNoon’s editors to showcase noteworthy tech solutions to real-world problems. Whether you’re a solopreneur, part of an early-stage startup, or a developer building something that truly matters, the Proof of Usefulness Hackathon is your chance to test your product’s utility, get featured on HackerNoon, and compete for $150k+ in prizes. Submit your project to get started! Welcome to the Proof of Usefulness Hackathon spotlight, curated by HackerNoon’s editors to showcase noteworthy tech solutions to real-world problems. Whether you’re a solopreneur, part of an early-stage startup, or a developer building something that truly matters, the Proof of Usefulness Hackathon is your chance to test your product’s utility, get featured on HackerNoon, and compete for $150k+ in prizes. Submit your project to get started! Proof of Usefulness Hackathon spotlight Proof of Usefulness Hackathon spotlight Proof of Usefulness Hackathon Proof of Usefulness Hackathon $150k+ Submit your project to get started Submit your project to get started Today, we're sitting down with Dominik Wei-Fieg, the creator behind Yaeum - Learn Korean. Yaeum is an innovative language learning app that allows fans of K-pop and K-drama to learn Korean directly from their favorite content using generative AI and machine learning. We discuss the app's development, its growing audience, and the future of personalized language education. Yaeum - Learn Korean What does Yaeum - Learn Korean do? And why is now the time for it to exist? With Yaeum, fans of K-pop and K-drama can easily learn Korean by tapping into their posted loved content. Search for a Korean song, drama, or movie, and Yaeum will provide an in-depth analysis of the text, sentence by sentence, and set up a personalized vocabulary list to make memorizing new words easy. To achieve this, Yaeum taps into several open sources third party apis and uses generative AI and machine learning to analyze the texts and provide grammatical explanations as well as vocabulary. Now’s a good time for Yaeum - Learn Korean to exist because the global appetite for Korean entertainment is at an all-time high, and advancements in AI finally make it possible to instantly bridge the gap between media consumption and personalized language education. What is your traction to date? How many people does Yaeum - Learn Korean reach? The apps were first released in September 2025, and with minimal advertising and social media posts, we currently have about 1K MAU and almost 4K signups. Who does your Yaeum - Learn Korean serve? Anyone who is interested in learning Korean can benefit from the app, as it will also provide vocabulary lists and grammatical explanations for any Korean text a user enters. The main target is K-pop and K-drama enthusiasts who want to understand the texts without falling back on translations. The next step is to provide tailored foundational lessons for learners without any previous exposure to Korean. This project is also not only in English but is localized to Arabic, Chinese, French, Indonesian, Japanese, Mongolian, Russian, Spanish, Thai, and Vietnamese. What technologies were used in the making of Yaeum - Learn Korean? And why did you choose ones most essential to your tech stack? To bring Yaeum to life, the tech stack relies on a robust combination of Quarkus, Flutter, and Bright Data, alongside advanced Natural Language Processing (NLP). At the core of the app's analytical capabilities is Alibaba's Qwen LLM, which effectively powers the generative AI needed to break down complex grammatical structures and generate accurate, real-time vocabulary lists for language learners. What is the traction to date for Yaeum - Learn Korean? While Yaeum is still in its ramp-up phase with fewer traditional web backlinks, it is already building a dedicated and steady community across major social media platforms. The app is actively capturing the attention of language learners and K-culture fans on TikTok, Instagram, and Xiaohongshu. TikTok Instagram Xiaohongshu Yaeum - Learn Korean scored a 74 proof of usefulness score (https://proofofusefulness.com/reports/yaeum-learn-korean) Yaeum - Learn Korean scored a 74 proof of usefulness score (https://proofofusefulness.com/reports/yaeum-learn-korean) https://proofofusefulness.com/reports/yaeum-learn-korean What excites you about this Yaeum - Learn Korean's potential usefulness? I myself may be this projects most enthusiastic user, as I want to increase my Korean vocabulary and understanding. But doing this with dry textbook lessons that don't resonate with my interests and which do not represent real spoken Korean, it is easy to loose interest. With Yaeum, users can use any Korean text that they are actually excited about and do not have to spent hours looking up words on dictionary sites (which can be daunting in Korean, as finding the base form for a verb is not always straightforward). Instead they receive their vocabulary lists automatically because Yaeum analyses the text, extracts the words and matches these words with the vocabulary the user already learned on Yaeum. Meet our sponsors Meet our sponsors Meet our sponsors Bright Data: Bright Data is the leading web data infrastructure company, empowering over 20,000 organizations with ethical, scalable access to real-time public web information. From startups to industry leaders, we deliver the datasets that fuel AI innovation and real-world impact. Ready to unlock the web? Learn more at brightdata.com. Bright Data: Bright Data is the leading web data infrastructure company, empowering over 20,000 organizations with ethical, scalable access to real-time public web information. From startups to industry leaders, we deliver the datasets that fuel AI innovation and real-world impact. Ready to unlock the web? Learn more at brightdata.com. Bright Data: brightdata.com Neo4j: GraphRAG combines retrieval-augmented generation with graph-native context, allowing LLMs to reason over structured relationships instead of just documents. With Neo4j, you can build GraphRAG pipelines that connect your data and surface clearer insights. Learn more. Neo4j: GraphRAG combines retrieval-augmented generation with graph-native context, allowing LLMs to reason over structured relationships instead of just documents. With Neo4j, you can build GraphRAG pipelines that connect your data and surface clearer insights. Learn more. Neo4j: more Storyblok: Storyblok is a headless CMS built for developers who want clean architecture and full control. Structure your content once, connect it anywhere, and keep your front end truly independent. API-first. AI-ready. Framework-agnostic. Future-proof. Start for free. Storyblok: Storyblok is a headless CMS built for developers who want clean architecture and full control. Structure your content once, connect it anywhere, and keep your front end truly independent. API-first. AI-ready. Framework-agnostic. Future-proof. Start for free. Storyblok: Start for free . Algolia: Algolia provides a managed retrieval layer that lets developers quickly build web search and intelligent AI agents. Learn more. Algolia: Algolia provides a managed retrieval layer that lets developers quickly build web search and intelligent AI agents. Learn more. Algolia: Learn more

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Between Two Computer Monitors: This story includes an interview between the writer and guest/interviewee. 

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Yaeum Earns a 74 Proof of Usefulness Score by Building an AI-Powered Sentence Mining and Grammar Analysis Tool for K-Pop and K-Drama Fans

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