SKT to Cultivate AI Talent for the 5G Era with 16 Universities

Its own 'AI Curriculum' provided to 16 universities — a threefold increase on last year

[inews24, reporter Kim Moon-gi] SK Telecom is setting out to cultivate artificial intelligence (AI) talent through online-based lectures optimized for the contactless era. On the 10th, SK Telecom (CEO Park Jung-ho) announced that from the second half of the year it will provide an 'AI Curriculum' to 16 major universities, in which its own AI specialists teach technical theory and business cases drawn from their working experience.

The 'AI Curriculum' is a practice-oriented course consisting of 49 educational videos featuring lectures by 15 doctoral-level specialists across AI technology areas including the speech recognition AI platform NUGU, speech recognition, image recognition and recommendation technology.

This year the company will additionally provide 113 pieces of educational content on Fourth Industrial Revolution topics such as AI, big data and cloud — previously offered to SK Telecom staff — as supplementary lecture material, and plans to run Q&A sessions in which students can communicate directly with the specialists.

The AI Curriculum began in 2017 with agreements with two universities. It expanded gradually to three universities in 2018 and five in 2019. Now in its fourth year, the AI Curriculum provides lectures for more than 30 credit-bearing regular courses at 16 institutions including Seoul National University.

The participating institutions are Kyungpook National University, Kyung Hee University, Korea University, Kwangwoon University, Sogang University, Seoul National University, Sungshin Women's University, Ajou University, Yonsei University, Inha University, Chonnam National University, Chung-Ang University, Chungnam National University, Chungbuk National University, Hanyang University and DGIST.

SK Telecom runs its university cooperation programme on an ongoing basis and continues to strengthen the quantity and quality of the AI Curriculum content. Thanks to these efforts, it has received favourable evaluations from partner universities and the number of universities wanting the AI Curriculum continues to grow.

Some institutions have even asked SK Telecom to "share some lectures with students in advance of the semester". Students who have taken the AI Curriculum have also responded positively, saying they "were able to learn how what they study at university is actually used in the workplace".

SK Telecom intends to continue sharing its AI technical capabilities and IT assets with universities, thereby contributing to cultivating the AI specialists Korea lacks and expanding the ecosystem.

Shin Sang-gyu, Head of SK Telecom's Corporate Culture Center, said: "As a leading ICT company in AI and 5G, SK Telecom plans to cultivate outstanding talent to lead the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution," adding: "We will work steadily to become a model for expanding Korea's AI ecosystem through greater AI exchange between universities and business."

News URL >> http://www.inews24.com/view/1289176