'The World's Top Translation Algorithm Expert' Professor: "Women Should Also Learn Computer Science"

KAIST Holds Pledge Ceremony for Professor Kyunghyun Cho's Development Fund on the 24th
Donation Specified as Scholarship for Female Students in the School of Computing
Professor Cho States, "I Hope Female Juniors Choose Computing Over Biology" as Reason for Donation

Professor Kyung-Hyun Cho, New York University. Photo by KAIST

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Bong-su] A male scientist, regarded as a leading figure in machine translation algorithms using artificial intelligence (AI), has attracted attention by donating a scholarship to nurture female prot?g?s.

According to the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), on the 24th, Professor Kyunghyun Cho (36, photo) of New York University, who was selected as the recipient of this year's Samsung Ho-Am Prize in Engineering, donated 100 million KRW of his prize money as a scholarship for KAIST juniors.

This scholarship is awarded to female undergraduate students in the Department of Computer Science. Students who need support or have demonstrated leadership become recipients of this scholarship, and KAIST plans to select five students each semester, providing 1 million KRW per person.

Professor Cho graduated from KAIST's Department of Computer Science in 2009, earned his master's and doctoral degrees at Aalto University in Finland, and has been a professor at New York University in the United States since 2015. He is recognized as a world-renowned scholar in machine learning and AI application research. He developed the "neural machine translation algorithm" capable of understanding the context before and after sentences for translation. Most of the translation engines currently in use apply the algorithm developed by Professor Cho. Acknowledging his contributions to innovation in AI translation and related industries, he was selected as the recipient of the "2021 Samsung Ho-Am Prize in Engineering" in April and received a prize of 300 million KRW on the 1st of this month.

Professor Cho specifically designated the scholarship to be used for nurturing female juniors when donating. He named the scholarship after his mother, calling it the "Department of Computer Science Im Mi-sook Scholarship," and limited the recipients to female students.

His mother, who graduated from university and became a high school teacher, had to quit her job due to childbirth and childcare, and he hopes that the passion and determination for education she had will be carried on by future generations. Although Professor Cho majored in computer science at KAIST, at that time it was natural for male students to major in computer science and female students to choose biology.

Professor Cho said, "Even after nearly 20 years, gender imbalance and stereotypes in the field of computer science still remain unresolved," adding, "I have been thinking about how I can help, even a little, to solve the issues of diversity and representation that have recently emerged in the AI field," explaining the background of his donation.

Professor Cho further explained, "Although it is a very small amount of scholarship, I created this scholarship named after my mother with the hope that when the female students who receive it face similar crossroads as my mother did, the atmosphere in our society will have changed for the better."

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