The Seoul AI Foundation has partnered with the MIT Senseable City Lab to launch a joint global AI education program for Korean university students. The initiative combines academic seminars, selective summer courses, and capstone internships - giving students direct access to researchers from one of the world's leading urban data labs while accelerating Seoul's effort to become an international hub for AI talent.
Program structure and early rollout
The partnership builds on the MIT Senseable City Lab's recent establishment of the "Seoul Global AI Lab," its first Asian outpost. In June, 50 students attended an Urban AI Seminar where MIT scholars demonstrated how data analysis can improve pedestrian safety, urban economics, and traffic design. A four-day summer school titled "Open Walks Seoul" followed in mid-July, with 25 top students from Seoul National University, KAIST, and Yonsei University collecting and analyzing real-time municipal data under the guidance of Fabio Duarte, the lab's associate director, and other urban scholars from KAIST and Harvard.
From classroom to city hall
This fall, 10 students will advance to a capstone project analyzing data from the Seoul Metropolitan Government with MIT researchers as mentors. The team will present policy recommendations directly to city officials. The work will then be showcased at the Seoul Urban AI Forum during Smart Life Week in October.
"This is a valuable opportunity for Seoul's future talent to build global capabilities by communicating directly with world-class researchers," said Kim Man-ki, chairman of the Seoul AI Foundation. "We will establish a systematic foundation to help university students grow into leaders in urban AI."
Why this matters for education professionals
The program models a tight integration of academic instruction, hands-on data work, and direct policy application - a framework that moves students from theory to civic impact within a single year. Educators designing experiential curricula can study how the selective sequencing (seminar → summer school → capstone) sustains engagement and builds competence stepwise. The direct mentorship pipeline, where students work with MIT researchers and city officials, also provides a replicable template for institutions seeking to connect classroom learning with public-sector challenges.
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