■ HUFS Data Center signs MOU with Skelter Labs on AI-powered linguistic research

HUFS Data Center (Director Yoon Seung-Woo) signed an MOU with AI technology company Skelter Labs (CEO Cho Won-Gyu) on October 7, 2021, for joint collaboration on an AI-powered linguistic research project.

The MOU provides both institutions with a platform to combine HUFS’s specialty in language data and foreign language education and Skelter Labs’ expertise in conversational AI technology and collaborate on natural language processing in the domains of the languages of Southeast Asia and other strategic regions as well as specialized industries. Under the MOU, they will develop an AI chat engine and translation tools to support new business development efforts in Southeast Asia, which holds relatively greater potential for new language business opportunities than the U.S., the U.K., and Europe.

Through collaboration with the AI tech firm, HUFS Data Center will apply the firm’s original conversational AI techniques, such as natural language processing, machine reading comprehension, speech recognition, and speech synthesis, to Southeast Asian languages, creating an AI service tailored to the automobile, entertainment, and other specialized industry sectors. From among the languages studied at HUFS, such as Indonesian, Thai, and Vietnamese, it will select priority languages by accounting for each country’s industrial development status, population, and GDP and conduct the project on those languages one after another.

Last June, HUFS Data Center had the honor of being appointed to carry out the National Information Society Agency (NIA)’s KRW 4.2 billion AI learning data construction support project after joining its open tender. It is currently working in a consortium of four companies, including Skelter Labs, with the aim of building speech data and colloquial-style translation corpora by the end of the year. Its ultimate goal is to develop an AI-powered multilingual interpretation and translation tool for each specialized domain.

HUFS Data Center Director Yoon Sung-Woo said, “This MOU gives us a valuable opportunity to cooperate with Skelter Labs, one of our corporate partners for our NIA project, on a new R&D project in natural language processing for specialized domains.”

■ HK+ National Strategies Research Project Agency of HUFS Institute of Latin American Studies inks MOU with the National Spanish Language Teachers’ Council

The HK+ National Strategies Research Project Agency of HUFS Institute of Latin American Studies (Head Jun Yong-Gap) held a ceremony to sign an MOU with the National Spanish Language Teachers’ Council (Chair Cho Gyung-Ho) at Seminar Hall of HUFS Global Campus Dormitory on August 19, 2021.

At the ceremony moderated by HK+ Research Professor Yang Eun-Mi, HUFS and the Council agreed on close cooperation to nurture regional experts and develop and execute a future leader cultivation program for the nation’s middle school Spanish teachers and Spanish-learning students as well as to promote the development of both institutions.

The Council has devoted its efforts to promoting general understanding of the Spanish language and the history and culture of Spain and Latin America among the nation’s middle and high school students. HUFS’s cooperation with the Council has high expectations as it will play a significant role in supporting Spanish language teachers to deepen and expand their knowledge on Spain and Latin America and thereby nurture regional experts and future Spanish scholars.