LG Uplus to open cyber security dept. at Soongsil Univ.

In a first for the company, South Korea’s LG Uplus Corp. will set up a cyber security department that offers employment at Soongsil University in Seoul to develop human resources in the field.

The company on Tuesday said it held a signing ceremony with Soongsil on the department's launch. Twenty undergraduates at the university will be selected every year from next year for training as cyber security specialists.

The faculty of Soongsil’s Department of Software will lead the new department's setup and curriculum. The university reported to the Ministry of Education last month of its planned launch of the department, which will offer a four-year undergraduate degree.

Students in the department will receive full tuition and living expense support for two years. After their sophomore year, those to receive scholarships will be selected separately to get full tuition, living expenses and work opportunities at LG Uplus until their graduation.

"Few universities in the country develop cyber security experts," LG Uplus CEO Hwang Hyeon-sik said. “The agreement with Soongsil University will secure expertise in the cyber security and computer fields and greatly contribute to producing domestic security experts.”

Other telecom companies are securing IT talent through agreements with universities. In the second semester of last year, SK Telecom Co. launched a new artificial intelligence (AI)-related curriculum at the Graduate School of Engineering Practice of Seoul National University, with the addition of curriculums with similar content in the second semester of this year under consideration.

KT Corp. opened applied an applied AI department at Hanyang University in March last year and another that July at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, aka KAIST. Both schools plan to develop 30 specialists each year and 150 over five years.

Write to Ju-Hyun Lee at 2juhyun@hankyung.com