Kakao said on Tuesday it has begun recruiting trainees for the fourth cohort of its Kakao Tech Campus programme to train regional university students as artificial intelligence (AI) developers.

The fourth cohort will select 150 students from 5 national hub universities: Kangwon National University, Kyungpook National University, Pusan National University, Chonnam National University and Chungnam National University. Selected students can experience a service development environment through mentoring by Kakao developers.

This year, the fourth cohort integrates the existing frontend and backend tracks and introduces a service development course for “agentic AI”, which AI judges and executes. It aims to foster talent that combines existing development skills with AI design and application capabilities.

The application period runs from Tuesday through April 15. Trainees selected through document screening and a coding test will begin an online course in May. The course is held online, allowing participants to combine it with their studies, and they can also earn school credits through industry-academia cooperation.

Kakao Tech Campus was selected last year as an excellent programme under the Ministry of Employment and Labor’s “Future Tomorrow Work Experience Project”. Since 2023, about 500 students at regional hub universities have completed the programme, and graduates have joined Kakao Group and major IT companies.

Kakao is working to build a non-capital-region AI ecosystem through “Kakao AI Dot”, which it launched in cooperation with 4 science and technology institutes in March.

Eun-hee Seo (서은희), Kakao’s technical talent development leader, said, “We consider laying the foundation to foster technical talent as one pillar of our social responsibility.” She said, “Kakao Tech Campus will become a pathway for regional talent to grow into leaders in the AI era.”