Gyeongnam Changwon Industry-Academia Convergence Center Selected as Korea Polytechnic University
| Target audience: College students and employees living near industrial complexes
| Full-scale implementation of projects, including curriculum opening and operation, will begin in April.

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced on the 19th that it will build a smart lab at the Gyeongnam Changwon Industry-Academia Convergence Center (hereinafter referred to as the Changwon Industry-Academia Convergence Center) and Korea University of Technology and Education (hereinafter referred to as the Sanggi University) to foster integrated smart factory experts in industry-academia convergence zones close to industrial sites.
Smart Lab is a field training infrastructure that trains specialized personnel who can comprehensively perform operations, design, coordination, and consulting for smart factories. The field training includes key process smart management systems, data analysis monitoring platforms, remote control management systems, collaborative robots, operating devices, communications, and cloud servers.

This project began in December of last year as part of the "Small and Medium Enterprise Smart Manufacturing Innovation Strategy," announced jointly by relevant ministries to drive innovation across the manufacturing industry.

The target audience for the training is university students (or graduates) near the industrial complex and employees of companies that are moving in. Theory and practical training on smart factories will be provided in parallel. Through this, it is expected that students (or graduates) will be able to get jobs at companies that are building (or wish to build) smart factories, and employees will be able to change jobs (or be reassigned).

This project's implementation plan was announced from January 16 to February 16 through the Korea Industrial Complex Corporation (KICOX), the dedicated organization. The two selected implementation agencies were selected based on a comprehensive consideration of the project's necessity, implementation capabilities, implementation plan, and project budget structure.
The Changwon Industry-Academic Convergence Institute, a consortium of three universities (Kyungsang National University, Kyungnam National University, and Masan National University), established a curriculum and a plan to build a demonstration smart lab that leverages the unique characteristics of the Changwon National Industrial Complex, including intelligent machinery, defense, precision machinery, and mechatronics. It received top marks for its goal of training 500 people within the year, with 120 of them employed, and for its commitment to proactive financial support from the local government. Additionally, Gyeongnam Province and Changwon City promised an additional 300 million won in local government support for this project.
Sanggi University secured a dedicated space (1,000㎡) on its second campus, twice the size of the previously announced space. Together with the Gyeonggi Industry-Academia Convergence Institute, the university plans to build one demonstration-type smart lab and two R&D-type smart labs specifically for the Banwol-Sihwa National Industrial Complex, the largest cluster of SMEs in Korea. Furthermore, the university's goal of training 400 students and securing 135 jobs at SMEs within the complex within the year has been met with positive feedback.
In the future, Changwon Industry-Academia Convergence Center and Sanggi University will receive a total of 5 billion won in national funding, sign a business agreement with the dedicated organization, Sangdan Gong, in March for project implementation, and begin operating the curriculum and constructing a smart lab in earnest starting in April.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups and the Korea Industrial Complex Corporation plan to hold meetings with organizations interested in participating in next year's project to gather feedback on future improvement tasks and expansion plans. Furthermore, they plan to make every effort to secure mid-term funding to build 30,000 smart factories and train 100,000 specialized personnel by 2022.