SK has created a two-year non-degree programme, 'SK AIGEN', for young people looking for a path between a degree and employment. SK said on Sunday it will select about 50 people aged 19 to 34 through its talent development platform, mySUNI, and start the first cohort on March 1, 2027. The company said the name combines "AI" and "Generation" and refers to a youth generation familiar with AI.

Participants will take part full time for two years and receive a monthly growth support stipend of 3 million won. The programme also provides skills training, mentoring for individual and team projects, and a workspace. It does not guarantee employment at a specific company or grant degrees. The company said there are no separate obligations imposed on participants after the programme ends.

The training reverses the usual order of learning courses first and then applying them to assignments. In the first year, participants plan and carry out projects in which they identify problems affecting individuals, companies and society and solve them using AI, learning the required capabilities in the process. In the second year, they tackle real problems in the field according to their career plans, and SK connects them with the necessary mentors and experts.

SK will strengthen the programme in cooperation with the Seoul National University AI Institute. The institute, a research organisation that applies AI across disciplines such as sociology, economics and public administration, will help participants broaden their humanities insights and design their careers. Selection will focus not on academic background or major but on the willingness to solve problems and growth potential in areas including technology, research, culture and arts, the public sector and society.

Applications will be accepted from Nov. 1 to 15, and final participants will be confirmed in late December after a selection process. An offline briefing session will be held on Oct. 28 at the conference hall of the Korea Foundation for Advanced Studies. Details can be found on the AIGEN website and Instagram. SK plans to select participants every year and develop AIGEN into its flagship talent development programme.

Park Sang-gyu (박상규), president of mySUNI, said SK prepared AIGEN to support the challenge of young people who want to build capabilities suited to the AI era. SK plans to select participants every year and establish AIGEN as SK's flagship talent development programme, he said.