[IT Education Innovation Spotlight]
Companies, universities, and nonprofit schools join forces to train 'automotive SW technicians

South Korean university students demonstrate a model self-driving car they built at the '42 Wolfsburg' lab in the city of Wolfsburg, Germany, on the morning of March 18, 2018. The students have been participating in an automotive software talent training program developed over the past year by Volkswagen Group Korea, Kookmin University, and the nonprofit coding school 42. 

It's the morning of March 18 at the 42 Wolfsburg campus lab in Wolfsburg, Germany. Five Korean university students stand in front of an audience of a few dozen people. They're demonstrating a model self-driving car they've been working on for four months. As one student manipulated the program on a computer, the car drove around obstacles and parked perfectly. The foreigners watching bombarded him with questions. "What part of 'Kuda' (developer software) did you use?" "What was the most useful tool for programming autonomous driving?" The students answered questions in English for more than 30 minutes without interruption. "It's amazing what they've accomplished in just one year," said Oliver Hartkopf, a software specialist at Volkswagen AG, who observed the students' presentation.

The students have been learning automotive-specific software (SW) skills in Germany for the past year. They participated in a program (SEA:ME) created by Volkswagen Group Korea together with Kookmin University and the non-profit coding school 42 Wolfsburg. In 2022, four students were selected and sent, and the second batch of 10 students sent last year completed the one-year program last month. The program will continue to send 10 students per year until 2025. The students' stay in Germany is paid for by Volkswagen Group Korea. As students who have completed the program have gone on to work for large Korean and German companies, more and more educational institutions are saying they want to "observe." In education circles, it's called a "model of cooperation between various sectors of society to develop IT talent, which is in high demand."

The partnership between the company, university, and nonprofit coding school began with a phone call two years ago. Volkswagen Group Korea wanted to create a program to teach automotive SW skills to university students as part of its social contribution activities and contacted Kookmin University. Kookmin University was the host university of the 'Innovation Convergence University Future Automotive Consortium' with six other universities, including Inha University and Chungbuk National University. Innovation Convergence University is a project funded by the Ministry of Education in which multiple universities share human and material resources and work together. Since then, Volkswagen Group Korea, Kookmin University, and 42 Wolfsburg have designed the program and selected the students.

'42' is a free coding school founded in 2013 by Xavier Niel, chairman of French telecommunications company Primobile, who donated his own money. This year, 11 years after its introduction, it has spread to 54 campuses in 31 countries. It is famous for its innovative "3 nothing" education system, which means no textbooks, no professors, and no lectures. It teaches practical coding rather than theory. The Wolfsburg campus, home to Volkswagen's headquarters, opened in 2021.

The Korean students are taught in the same unique way. Throughout the year, they work in teams with their peers on real-world projects. For example, they are given the task of developing an automotive infotainment (audio and entertainment) system, and they work in teams to produce a result in four months. There are no teachers or evaluators. They learn by asking questions and discussing with other students, called peer learning.

"At first, there was no set curriculum and no one to manage it, so I wondered, 'Am I doing it right?' But as we constantly talked and solved problems among ourselves, I could see the direction," said Goh Da Hyun(4th year, Automotive Engineering, Kookmin University). "It was good to learn not only technology, but also how to communicate with developers and project management skills," said Kim Jun Ho, a third-year electronic engineering student at Kookmin University.

"In the software industry, no one really teaches you, you have to learn from your peers," said Pratik Prajapati, Curriculum Leader at 42 Wolfsburg, adding, "Peer learning prepares you for the workplace."

There are no teachers, but there are advisors. More than 20 local German automotive software engineers and researchers serve as "fellows," co-creating the curriculum and advising students when they need it. Thanks to them, the students learn as technology changes in the industry. For example, Changhyeok Bae, an engineer at Mercedes-Benz Group's software subsidiary Emission, is a fellow. He travels from Berlin to Wolfsburg by train whenever he can. "I teach the students the same things I use in my work," he says. It gives them a huge competitive advantage over their peers who have only completed undergraduate studies."

Students who have completed the program have been inundated with offers from large companies. Three out of the four graduates of the first batch were hired by LG Electronics, LG Ericsson, and Samsung Electronics. All of them got two or three offers. Of the second class, which finished the program last month, one has already been hired by Hyundai Motor Company and one has been hired as an intern at Volkswagen's subsidiary Cariad.

Volkswagen Group Korea is holding a similar program in Korea this month in the form of a "hackathon" (a combination of "hacking" and "marathon" - a software program development competition)

A view of 42 Wolfsburg, a nonprofit coding school in the city of Wolfsburg, Germany, where people of various nationalities learn to code for free. Korean university students from Kookmin University and Inha University also spend a year learning automotive-specific software skills. 

SEA:ME Curriculum Leader Pratik Prajapati speaks to us in his office at '42 Wolfsburg' in Wolfsburg, Germany. The office walls are decorated to look like a swimming pool. The name comes from the unique '42' entrance exam. Anyone over the age of 18 can learn to code for free at 42, but they have to pass a rigorous entrance test called the Piscine (French for "pool"). The idea is that once you're in the pool, you can swim on your own, and you can learn to code by working on projects with your peers without anyone teaching you. The Korean students were selected after a similar coding test and interview in Korea. 

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