'Yes Pyeongchang' hosts semiconductor talent academy for 4,000 students

More than 4,000 of South Korea's leading semiconductor talents are gathering in Pyeongchang — site of the "Yes PyeongChang" Winter Olympics — for a large-scale academy event.

The fifth Co-Week Academy in the semiconductor field opens Monday for a five-day, four-night run at Alpensia Resort in Pyeongchang-gun.

The National Research Foundation of Korea and the Innovative Convergence University Project Council are jointly organizing the event, with support from the Korea Tourism Organization, Gangwon Province and Pyeongchang-gun.

The academy is being held at Alpensia — the former headquarters of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics — for the second consecutive year.

The gathering functions as a "pop-up campus," bringing together more than 4,000 university students from across the country to attend lectures in cutting-edge fields of their choosing, crossing departmental, institutional and disciplinary boundaries within the innovative convergence university network.

Students from 67 universities nationwide will have the chance to attend roughly 144 lectures across 18 advanced fields, including AI and data security and convergence applications.

Participants include university students from across the country, overseas Koreans and lecturers.

The organizing council is also running community programs for local residents — including traditional Korean medicine services and AI-based longevity content production — to give the event broader social significance.

Gangwon Province sees the event as a major milestone for university students from both the greater Seoul area and regional cities, offering a knowledge- and innovation-driven learning experience to help them prepare for and shape their futures.

The province also expects the event to raise Gangwon's profile and stimulate the local economy through tours of Winter Olympics facilities, performances by the provincial arts troupe and sightseeing tours arranged for attendees.