SKT Launches Practical Talent Development... Recruiting for 'AI Fellowship 5th Cohort'

by Oh Suyon

Published 11 Apr.2023 08:57(KST)

SK Telecom announced on the 11th that it is recruiting applicants for the 5th class of the 'SKT AI Fellowship,' a program that nurtures future talent in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) through the execution of research projects currently underway at corporate sites.

Since 2019, SKT has been operating the 'SKT AI Fellowship' program to help university and graduate students studying AI gain practical corporate experience and grow into development experts. The most distinctive feature of the 'SKT AI Fellowship' is that it offers opportunities to carry out research projects that are actually in progress within the company. Participants use real data from the field to conduct research identical to that of current developers and receive direct mentoring, gaining hands-on experience in a vivid real development environment.

On the 11th, SK Telecom announced that it is recruiting applicants for the 5th class of the 'SKT AI Fellowship,' a program that nurtures future talent in the field of artificial intelligence through the execution of research projects currently underway at corporate sites.
[Photo by SKT]

In addition, SKT actively supports participants in achieving results by promoting the application of excellent projects to commercial services and assisting with domestic and international exhibition participation. Participants who complete the AI Fellowship program are also given special benefits when applying for employment at SKT.

Participants selected for the 5th 'SKT AI Fellowship' will choose one next-generation technology area centered on AI, such as ▲5G ▲Media ▲Cloud ▲Metaverse ▲Mobility, and conduct research projects in that field. Interested university or graduate students can form teams of up to three members and submit their research proposals on the ‘SKT AI Fellowship’ website by May 7. Selected teams will carry out research projects currently underway at SKT for five months from May to October. Each team will also receive up to 10 million KRW in research funding and rewards.

Last year, a team composed of students from the Department of Data Science at Seoul National University and the Department of Artificial Intelligence at Sogang University participated in the 4th 'SKT AI Fellowship' and researched a personalized lecture recommendation system reflecting user interests and a chatbot supporting two-way communication between users. This will be applied to SKT’s internal learning curation system for employees. Another team of students from the Department of Artificial Intelligence at Sungkyunkwan University participated in developing a technology that automatically colors black-and-white images by considering the historical background and context using deep learning techniques. SKT successfully secured the ‘Old Jeonnam Provincial Office Restoration 3rd Year Project’ led by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism by utilizing this technology.

Ahn Jeong-hwan, SKT’s Corporate Culture Officer, said, “We hope that participants in the ‘SKT AI Fellowship’ will experience vivid fieldwork and build solid practical experience to grow into future talents in the AI field,” adding, “SKT will continue to introduce various programs to nurture future AI talent.”