SKT Expands Support Areas for 'Nugu Care Call' Assisting COVID-19 Response

SK Telecom announced on the 29th that it will additionally introduce the AI system "NUGU Care Call," which monitors the symptoms of individuals under self-quarantine or active surveillance related to the COVID-19 virus, in Seo-gu, Gwangju Metropolitan City. On the 28th, Hyun-A Lee, Head of AI Service Division at SK Telecom (left), and Dae-Seok Seo, Mayor of Seo-gu, signed an agreement for the introduction of "NUGU Care Call" in Seo-gu, Gwangju Metropolitan City. Photo by Lee Hyun-A

[Asia Economy Reporter Joselgina] SK Telecom is accelerating support for COVID-19 quarantine sites by signing an agreement to introduce ‘NUGU Care Call’ with Seo-gu Office of Gwangju Metropolitan City, following Gyeongsangnam-do Provincial Government.

On the 29th, SK Telecom announced that it will support the artificial intelligence (AI) system ‘NUGU Care Call,’ which monitors symptoms of active surveillance and negative-tested individuals related to the COVID-19 virus, to Seo-gu, Gwangju Metropolitan City.

‘NUGU Care Call’ is a system where SK Telecom’s AI NUGU, leading the 5G era, checks the presence of symptoms such as fever, body temperature, cough, and sore throat of COVID-19 related subjects through phone calls.

Accordingly, from August 3, SK Telecom will provide the ‘NUGU Care Call’ service to about 1,300 active surveillance and negative-tested individuals in 18 neighborhoods of Seo-gu, Gwangju Metropolitan City. It is notable that the service scope has been expanded to include negative-tested individuals who have already completed testing. SK Telecom and Seo-gu Office of Gwangju Metropolitan City expect that including negative-tested individuals, who were not previously managed, in the monitoring targets will bring about a more thorough COVID-19 quarantine effect.

Lee Hyun-ah, head of SK Telecom AI Service Division, said, “We will continuously expand the regions so that ‘NUGU Care Call’ can contribute to COVID-19 quarantine response,” and added, “We will continue to discover social value models that help the public sector through SK Telecom’s AI technology.”

Meanwhile, since May, SK Telecom has applied ‘NUGU Care Call’ to 20 public health centers in 18 cities and counties in the Gyeongsangnam-do region, checking the presence of COVID-19 related symptoms such as fever, body temperature, cough, and sore throat of self-quarantined and active surveillance subjects. According to Gyeongsangnam-do, as a result of about 45,000 calls and 466 hours of phone monitoring over two months through NUGU Care Call, the related phone monitoring work of public health centers has decreased by about 85%.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.