AI Valley Hackathon 2025: Oppalingo Makes It to the Finals

AI Valley Hackathon 2025: Oppalingo Makes It to the Finals

Honored to be part of the AI Valley Hackathon in Palo Alto — what a weekend! 🚀 Organized by students from Carnegie Mellon University Silicon Valley, it brought together top student builders, founders, and engineers from across the Bay Area.

Our team built Oppalingo, an AI-powered K-drama-inspired language learning app designed to help users practice conversational Korean. Using the Whisper API, Oppalingo analyzes users’ audio input and provides custom feedback, creating an interactive and engaging learning experience.

The Challenge: Real-Time AI Language Learning

Language learning apps often struggle to give instant, personalized feedback for speaking practice. Traditional tools either rely on pre-recorded prompts or generic AI responses, which fail to adapt to individual users’ mistakes and pronunciation.

We wanted to create an app that not only teaches the language but feels like a real conversation with a K-drama character, making practice fun, contextual, and engaging.

Our Solution: Oppalingo

Oppalingo uses AI to simulate interactive dialogues with K-drama-inspired avatars. Key features include:

• Voice input and analysis with Whisper API for accurate pronunciation and grammar feedback.
• Custom AI responses that adapt to user mistakes and context.
• Engaging UX with lessons inspired by popular K-drama scenes.

In just 2 days, we built a fully functional prototype that was recognized by judges and made it to the hackathon finals, competing alongside other cutting-edge AI projects.

Team Members and Contributions

Our team consisted of passionate builders and engineers from various backgrounds. Together, we combined AI engineering, frontend UX, and creative storytelling to make Oppalingo both functional and fun.

Acknowledgments

Huge thanks to TRAE, Gru.ai, Solana, EntreConnect, LanceDB, Netflix, and our host Victor Su-Ortiz for making the hackathon possible. Grateful to be surrounded by so many brilliant minds shaping the future of AI.

Learn More

Check out the demo and see Oppalingo in action — we’re excited to keep iterating and building the next version of the app!

Project Links

• Project MVP: Oppalingo