Kakao to Nurture Local Developers with 'Kakao Tech Campus'

[Asia Economy Reporter Yuri Choi] Kakao is partnering with regional flagship national universities to nurture local talent.

Kakao announced on the 9th that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Pusan National University and Chonnam National University respectively to operate the ‘Kakao Tech Campus.’ The MOU signing ceremony was attended by Nam Ki-woong, Vice President of Kakao, Baek Yoon-joo, Director of the Software Education Center at Pusan National University, and Baek Sung-joong, Dean of the College of Engineering at Chonnam National University.

The Kakao Tech Campus is a technology developer training program operated in collaboration with regional universities. Kakao plans to provide differentiated education through cooperation with schools and local communities.

The Kakao Tech Campus is conducted entirely online to allow participation in education without constraints of time and space. It offers training from basic developer education to project-based practical training. This supports participants to grow into junior developers capable of immediately joining the workforce. Throughout the education, current Kakao developers will participate to provide Q&A related to job hunting, mentoring, special lectures, and code reviews.

The first cohort of Kakao Tech Campus will begin recruitment by school in March. The education program will run from April to November. The first web developer training course is divided into Front-End and Back-End tracks. Participants will learn technical stacks and engage in clone projects as well as actual web service development projects.

Starting with this agreement, Kakao plans to gradually expand its cooperation partners. Nam Ki-woong, Head of Kakao’s Community Human Resources Support Office, said, “The Kakao Tech Campus is a new education program launched by Kakao to address regional marginalization and the shortage of IT industry personnel. Going forward, Kakao will continue efforts to create a better world by coexisting with various social members in the field of education.”