Professor's compliment-rewarding AI wins innovation grand prize

Min Byoung-chul, chair and founder of the Sunfull Foundation and endowed chair professor at Chung-Ang University

Min Byoung-chul, chair and founder of the Sunfull Foundation and endowed chair professor at Chung-Ang University, received the Grand Prize for AI Innovation and Social Contribution at the 18th App Award Korea 2025 for his work on ChatKind.

ChatKind is the world’s first compliment-rewarding AI platform, designed to detect positive comments and convert them into measurable social value.

Users earn a "kindness score" for encouraging or appreciative language. Employers and schools can then offer tangible rewards such as coupons, paid leave or volunteer hours.

For almost 20 years, Min has combated online hate through the Sunfull Movement, a campaign encouraging constructive digital engagement. Striving to replace cruelty with empathy, he has pressed online communities to reconsider their modes of communication.

Positioning itself as a new paradigm for human-centered AI, ChatKind seeks to cultivate more constructive engagement in online spaces by combining a sophisticated filter for toxic remarks and hate speech with a mechanism that incentivizes positive contributions.

The idea for the program originated three years ago, after a corporate executive lamented how toxic digital behavior was damaging workplace culture.

Min combined AI technology with a guiding philosophy to create a platform that fosters positive interactions, rather than merely blocking negative behavior. Companies using ChatKind report enhanced teamwork and improved service performance, while schools say it has led to a decline in student misconduct.

He called the award a shared honor with those who believe in the power of kindness and the positive potential of AI.

Looking ahead, he aims to scale ChatKind into a global "K-Respect" model, expanding its role from digital citizenship to international cultural empathy, functioning as an extension of a movement that has already generated more than 10 million positive comments worldwide.