A new platform to educate creative young people to meet society’s demands

Korea University opens the Institute of Data Science on March 9

▲ From left to right: Provost & Executive Vice President Ryu Jin Hee, President Chung Jin Taek, 

Institute of Data Science Director Kim Sangsig, Executive Vice President for Research Ree Jin Han

Korea University’s newly launched Institute of Data Science (IDS) will play a leading role in the convergence research and education in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and data science (DS), the locus of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

After opening AI Graduate School for the first time in Korea in an effort to realize a data-based participatory smart campus, the university aspires to speed up university-industry collaboration as well as boosting AI and data-based converging technology research, key driving forces of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

KU’s IDS seeks to develop and operate group research support programs and build an advanced convergence education and research environment in order to promote AI-DS group convergence research across disciplines including the humanities and social sciences, natural sciences, applied sciences, and biomedical sciences, not to mention AI-DS base technologies. The institute will implement a system to provide full-cycle support for AI-DS convergence research organizations and endeavor to help research organizations develop their competitive edge.

IDS will offer education programs upon the AI-DS convergence research environment in place. Its ‘Data Science Academy’ will develop education programs and give AI-DS convergence education and training for KU staff and faculty, students, citizens and related businesses as a non-degree program and introductory AI-DS courses in the liberal arts for all KU students as a regular curriculum.

IDS is also developing subjects for the AI-DS convergence major to equip students with skills to take the initiative in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The liberal arts program will be developed in the first semester of 2020 followed by a pilot program in the second semester before being offered in full swing in the first semester of 2021. The major subjects will be developed in 2020 and launched in the first semester of 2021.

Expectations are growing about its role in the area of academia-industry cooperation. KU's IDS is expected to play a pivotal role in AI-DS convergence research to solve problems facing industry through collaborations between KU researchers and businesses. To this end, IDS's Academia-Industry Partnership Center provides support for AI-DS convergence research between the university and industry and for companies to set up an AI-DS research laboratory on campus to meet the needs for research cooperation.

KU has appointed Professor Kim Sangsig of School of Electrical Engineering, College of Engineering to be the founding director of IDS, which will be a hotbed of faculty members who are involved in the AI-DS convergence research and education and have interest in this field.

On Monday March 9 in the KU International Center for Converging Technology, the opening and signboard hanging ceremony for the IDS was held. Attendees included President Chung Jin Taek, Executive Vice President for Research Ree Jin Han, IDS Director Kim Sangsig, and others.

At the ceremony, President Chung Jin Taek expressed his expectations for IDS: “With the establishment of IDS, Korea University now has a convergence research and education system for AI and DS, which will pave the way for fostering creative young talent that meets the needs of society.”

“As a platform at the forefront of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the institute will prop up education and research in cooperation with industry,” said IDS Director Kim Sangsig.