South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT said on Tuesday it is seeking applications until April 17 to select 4 domestic universities, including graduate schools, to run an “AI and digital-based startup talent training program” aimed at cultivating advanced startup talent at the master’s and doctoral levels by linking multidisciplinary research with entrepreneurship.
The program focuses on nurturing AI and digital-based entrepreneurial talent that defines market problems and proposes solutions using AI technology, leading to startup creation.
Universities will introduce an integrated “research-startup” entrepreneurship curriculum that moves away from theory-centred education and links research results immediately to business. Master’s and doctoral students will complete the full process as part of the regular curriculum, from market analysis and establishing a business model (BM) to producing a minimum viable product (MVP), based on their research topics, to strengthen commercialisation capabilities.
Under the program, hub universities with core AI technologies, serving as lead institutions, will provide a technical foundation. Participating laboratories from various domains such as bio, manufacturing and energy will join as a consortium to derive multidisciplinary AI transformation (AX) solutions.
It will also build a market validation mentoring system in which accelerators (AC) and venture capital firms (VC) participate directly from the curriculum design stage so that technologies developed by master’s and doctoral students in laboratories can lead beyond commercialisation to startup creation.
The 4 projects to be selected are expected to receive support for a total of 6 years (3 plus 3 years), with an annual budget of 1 billion won per project.
Park Tae-wan (박태완), director general for information and communications industry policy at the ministry, said, “We will actively support master’s and doctoral talent so they can be reborn as global entrepreneurs leading the AX era without fearing failure.”
