KIWIE 2026 Celebrates Women-Led Innovation

The Korea International Women’s Invention Exposition 2026 (KIWIE 2026) brought together women inventors, entrepreneurs, researchers, and innovation leaders from around the world for three days dedicated to creativity, intellectual property, technological advancement, and international cooperation.

Held from July 16 to 18, 2026, at The Platz Hall, COEX, Seoul, Republic of Korea, this year’s event demonstrated the continued expansion of KIWIE as an international platform for recognizing and empowering women whose inventions are contributing to technological, economic, and social progress.

The event was hosted by the Ministry of Intellectual Property (MOIP) and organized by the Korea Women Inventors Association (KWIA), with the support of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the International Federation of Inventors’ Associations (IFIA). 

KIWIE 2026 recorded a significant level of international participation. The Korea International Women’s Invention Competition featured 591 inventions, including 137 inventions from Korea and 454 inventions from 20 countries, while the exhibition brought together 53 Korean companies. 

The international participation reflected a broad geographical reach, with innovators represented from Azerbaijan, China, Croatia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Iran, Korea, Kuwait, Mongolia, New Zealand, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, and Yemen. 

The scale of the 2026 competition represents substantial growth compared with the previous edition. KIWIE 2025 featured 445 inventions from 16 countries, including 133 Korean and 312 international inventions. In 2026, the competition reached 591 inventions, with particularly strong international participation.

This continued expansion underscores the growing importance of women inventors within the global innovation ecosystem and KIWIE’s role in providing them with a dedicated international platform to present their technologies, exchange expertise, and establish new professional connections.

KIWIE 2026 extended beyond the presentation and evaluation of inventions. Its three-day program combined the exhibition with an opening ceremony, evaluation activities, welcome dinner, intellectual property education, and the final awards ceremony. 

A notable component of the program was the IP Leadership Academy for Global Women, held on July 17 at COEX, providing an educational dimension alongside the competition and exhibition. The official report’s event photographs also document the opening ceremony, international gathering, academy sessions, and exhibition activities, illustrating the event’s combination of recognition, education, and professional exchange. 

By integrating intellectual property education with invention presentation, KIWIE provides women innovators with more than a showcase. It contributes to building the knowledge and networks required to protect inventions, strengthen their innovation capacity, and pursue opportunities beyond the exhibition itself.

As an international supporter of KIWIE 2026, the International Federation of Inventors’ Associations (IFIA) continued its commitment to promoting greater participation and recognition of women across the international invention and innovation community.

IFIA’s involvement reflects its broader mission to create an innovation ecosystem in which talented inventors can gain international visibility and recognition regardless of geography or background.

Within KIWIE, this commitment takes on particular significance. Women inventors are contributing increasingly sophisticated solutions across science, engineering, sustainability, energy, healthcare, education, digital technology, and everyday life. International platforms capable of recognizing these achievements help ensure that their contributions receive the visibility they deserve.

In 2026, IFIA reinforced this commitment by recognizing four outstanding inventions with the IFIA Best Invention Medal, highlighting projects distinguished by their innovative character and potential impact.

The KIWIE 2026 Awards Ceremony, held on July 18 at Studio 159, COEX, marked one of the major highlights of the event. During the ceremony, four innovators from the Republic of Korea, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia received the IFIA Best Invention Medal. 

The 2026 IFIA award recipients were:

• Lee Hyun Jin – ANYLOCK Co., Ltd., Republic of Korea
  Push-pull Door Lock with a Clutch Mechanism
• Hwang Choon Hong – Dowgene Co., Ltd., Republic of Korea
  Forensic Science Experience DNA Electrophoresis Kit
• Shaden N. Albalawi – King Abdul Aziz University, Saudi Arabia
  Adaptive Hybrid Photonic Layer for Enhanced Solar Energy Harvesting
• Jenan Alshehab – ELECTRODIS TECH, Kuwait
  Wireless Power Transmission System

The four award-winning inventions illustrate the diversity of contemporary women-led innovation from practical mechanical engineering and science education to advanced solar-energy technologies and wireless power systems.

The international composition of KIWIE 2026 demonstrated an important characteristic of today’s innovation landscape: meaningful invention is increasingly developed through a global community that transcends national and disciplinary boundaries.

The 454 international inventions presented in the competition represented a substantial majority of the 591 entries, reinforcing KIWIE’s international character. 

At the same time, the range represented by the IFIA-awarded inventions demonstrates how women innovators are contributing to very different technological challenges. A new door-lock mechanism addresses practical engineering and usability; a DNA electrophoresis kit creates opportunities for experiential forensic-science learning; an adaptive photonic layer explores enhanced solar-energy harvesting; and a wireless power transmission system addresses a rapidly developing area of electrical and energy technology.

Together, these projects demonstrate that women’s innovation is not concentrated in a single field. It is contributing across multiple areas of technological development and responding to both immediate practical needs and longer-term global challenges.

KIWIE 2026 once again demonstrated that supporting women inventors is not simply a question of representation; it is an essential part of strengthening the global capacity for innovation.

From 591 inventions and broad international participation to dedicated intellectual property education, the 2026 edition provided a powerful illustration of the creativity, technical capability, and ambition of women innovators worldwide. 

Through its continued support of KIWIE and its recognition of outstanding women-led inventions, IFIA reinforces its commitment to ensuring that women inventors have access to international platforms where their achievements can be recognized, connected, and advanced.

As women continue to play an increasingly influential role in science, technology, entrepreneurship, and sustainable development, international initiatives such as KIWIE will remain important in creating opportunities for their ideas to move from invention to broader impact.

KIWIE 2026 therefore stands not only as a celebration of successful inventions, but as a reflection of a larger global movement one in which women are increasingly shaping the technologies, solutions, and innovation ecosystems of the future.