Gwangju City Aims to Achieve 75% Employment Rate for AI Officer School

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Jin-hyung] Gwangju Metropolitan City has taken the first step toward achieving an employment rate of over 75% for the 3rd cohort of trainees at the Gwangju Artificial Intelligence Academy.

The 75% employment rate matches the cumulative employment rate up to the 5th cohort of the Samsung Youth Software Academy (SAFFY) and the 2021 employment rate of Meister High Schools, which are industry-customized high schools.

On the 1st, Gwangju City announced that last month it held a policy workshop with the AI Industry Convergence Project Group, the education operating institutions Smart Talent Development Institute, ELICE, and the Korea Standards Association to further specify the support policies for employment and entrepreneurship for the 3rd cohort this year and to discover innovative ideas related to employment and entrepreneurship.

The workshop was attended by Son Kyung-jong, Director of the AI Industry Bureau of the city, Lim Cha-sik, Project Group Leader, Cha Jun-seop, Director of the Smart Talent Development Institute, Kim Jae-won, CEO of ELICE, and Han Dae-cheol, Head of Quality Management Headquarters at the Korea Standards Association, who each presented activation plans for employment and entrepreneurship for the 3rd cohort by their respective organizations.

First, Gwangju City will accelerate corporate attraction activities targeting AI companies outside the city that can immediately start practical business such as establishing corporations and offices.

Since October 2019, Gwangju City has signed AI business cooperation agreements with 145 companies and institutions including NHN Co., Ltd., Kakao Enterprise Corp., CJ OliveNetworks Co., Ltd., SK Telecom Co., Ltd., and Hancom Group, among which 97 companies and institutions have opened offices in Gwangju.

This year, the city aims to attract 60 companies from outside the city and a total of 310 companies by 2024, continuing active attraction activities.

Additionally, Gwangju City and the project group plan to form and operate an employment support committee in May, consisting of local and relocated AI companies, to thoroughly understand corporate demands in advance and minimize mismatches caused by hiring timing or job mismatches.

Furthermore, the city, the project group, educational institutions, and related experts will establish a new academy operation committee to respond actively and flexibly to the changing policy environment, including the new government's roadmap for nurturing one million digital talents.

The 3rd cohort education operating institutions will contribute to improving employment rates through their corporate cooperation networks and programs.

The Smart Talent Development Institute, which maintains the highest domestic employment rate of 82.2%, plans to design AI project courses linked with a total of 31 participating companies including LG and POSCO by utilizing its own network.

The Korea Standards Association, which signed an AI business cooperation agreement with the city in June 2020, will assist academy trainees' employment through meticulous one-on-one individual employment consulting and by utilizing extensive job information from its 4,500 member companies.

ELICE, an online coding education specialist, will provide its self-developed IT developer all-in-one recruitment platform ‘ELICE Works’ to facilitate effective employment connections.

In particular, ELICE plans to connect outstanding academy graduates to its large-scale ongoing recruitment of about 200 people by the end of this year to continue its explosive growth.

Meanwhile, since the selection of the academy education operating institutions on the 13th, the recruitment of trainees has been actively underway, with a total of 565 applicants as of the 30th, and applications are accepted on the academy website until May 6.

Son Kyung-jong, Director of the AI Industry Bureau, said, “The new government has promised active support for Gwangju’s AI industry, including the establishment of a national AI cluster, talent development, R&D, and startups, and plans to develop Gwangju into Korea’s definitive Silicon Valley. The Gwangju AI Academy is a core project for talent development to achieve this, and together with educational institutions, we will mobilize all capabilities to actively support employment and entrepreneurship. We hope many young people nationwide who want to realize their dreams at Gwangju, the national AI innovation hub, will participate.”

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