The Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) announced that it is openly recruiting students for the Metaverse Academy until April 10th, which supports young people with talent and passion in the metaverse field to grow into developers and creators who will lead the metaverse industry.

The Metaverse Academy, now in its third year, provides customized education to young people with the goal of producing developers and creators with the expertise required in the metaverse industry. Over the past two years, a total of 491 students have graduated and 101 commercially viable projects have been completed.

This year, we plan to train a total of 300 people by operating the 'Service Development/Creation' and 'Autonomous Major' courses. Any young person under the age of 39 who is interested in metaverse service development and content creation, regardless of academic background, career experience, region, or major, can apply.

The 'Service Development and Creation' course cultivates the basic capabilities required for development and creation through specialized training through online pre-learning (mid-April to May), regular courses (June to September), and hackathon camps. Afterwards, we plan to develop a metaverse service that can actually be used by carrying out a convergence project (October-November) between different majors such as XR, network (backend), AI, planning, and TA (Technical Artist).

The 'Autonomous Major' course is a program that focuses on supporting commercialization of projects presented by domestic and foreign metaverse companies through project execution, advancement of service development ideas, corporate mentoring, and startup consulting. Starting this year, it will be operated in conjunction with the 'Metaverse Developer Competition'.

The curriculum will be operated not only in the metropolitan area but also in the northeastern region (Daegu, Gyeongbuk, and Gangwon) where the Metaverse Hub Center has been established, to reflect the educational needs of local youth and respond to the human resources needs of local companies since the previous year.

Selected participants will receive support to focus on their training, including creative space, software and hardware equipment, and up to 1 million won per month for five months. Top trainees will also receive the Minister of Science and ICT Award and prize money, training opportunities at global companies like Meta, and internships at metaverse companies.

Hwang Gyu-cheol, Director General of Software Policy at the Ministry of Science and ICT, said, “In order to lead the metaverse industry, it is most important to cultivate specialized talent. Therefore, we will spare no effort to support the Metaverse Academy so that excellent developers and creators that the industry needs can emerge,” and added, “We hope for the interest of many young people with dreams and passion for the metaverse field, including local youth.”

Detailed information about the curriculum can be found on the Metaverse Academy website and the Korea Radio Promotion Association website.