Kookmin University to Foster Global Talent in Future Automotive Software

Collaboration on Talent Development with Germany’s NFF and Volkswagen Foundation

Kookmin University, representing the Korean University Consortium (KUC), signed an agreement for the implementation of a ‘Future Automotive Talent Development Program’ with the Niedersachsen Automotive Research Center (NFF) and Institute of Automotive Engineering (IAE) under Technische Universität Braunschweig in Germany, as well as the Volkswagen Group Woori Foundation.

(From left) Roman Henche, Director; Til Scheer, CEO and President; Seungryul Jung, President. Kookmin University

This agreement was established to expand industry-academia cooperation on a global scale, with the aim of fostering practical talent capable of leading the future mobility technology market.

As the representative university of the consortium, which consists of Kookmin University, Ajou University, Inha University, and Chungbuk National University, Kookmin University will oversee and coordinate educational and research cooperation among the participating universities. It will play a key role as the control tower, managing the selection of outstanding students, the development of customized curricula in Korea, and the comprehensive expansion of industry-university cooperation programs.

Through this, domestic students will be fully supported so that they can step out of university classrooms and gain practical experience closely linked to global research sites, enabling them to acquire advanced problem-solving skills demanded by the future automotive industry.

The program will be formally operated for three years from next year until 2029. Each year, after a rigorous screening process, selected outstanding undergraduates from the KUC will be dispatched to research sites of the IAE and NFF in Germany.

The selected students will work as part of a team with researchers on-site for about 12 months, directly participating in large-scale research projects in core next-generation mobility fields such as autonomous driving, automotive artificial intelligence, and automotive software.

The locally immersive program, which includes close mentoring and performance-sharing sessions, is expected to significantly enhance students’ global collaboration capabilities.

Alongside the overseas dispatch, the educational infrastructure at Korean universities will also be revamped to support this initiative.

KUC will jointly develop educational modules integrating core elements of future automotive software, including embedded systems, autonomous driving systems, automotive AI, and automotive cybersecurity.

Each university will meticulously link these modules to existing major courses and capstone design projects, assisting students in fulfilling credit requirements and enabling integrated learning.

Furthermore, various extracurricular programs will be combined, such as hackathons on autonomous driving and AI, student clubs, and alumni mentoring from industry professionals, with the aim of enhancing both academic knowledge and practical skills.

At the agreement ceremony held on the 3rd at Volkswagen Group Korea's headquarters, key figures from the mobility and education sectors of both countries reaffirmed their commitment to cooperation. Attendees included Seungryul Jung, President of Kookmin University; Till Scheer, CEO and President of Volkswagen Group Korea and Chairman of the Volkswagen Group Woori Foundation; Roman Henche, Director of the IAE; and Maximilian Flormann, Department Head at the IAE.

Seungryul Jung, President of Kookmin University, stated, “By building on a strong partnership with Volkswagen Group Korea and the Volkswagen Group Woori Foundation, we have been able to dramatically expand research and academic collaboration with world-class German research institutes, IAE and NFF. We will ensure that this project develops into a unique, globally successful industry-academic model that continuously nurtures practical future software fusion talent for the global mobility market, rather than a one-off event.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.