College Partners with Korean Universities, City to Expand Learning and Innovation

Imagine a city with kiosks providing free access to life-saving information for unhoused people living on the streets. At their fingertips is a map of available warm beds and shelter, information on food bank hours of operation, and whether or not there is a wait time for those services – all in 16 different languages.  

Or recall the frustration of throwing waste away. Is it recyclable? Compostable? By the time you figure it out, you could feel as though it’s your time that’s been wasted. But a Gemini AI solution to automatically detect and classify each waste item could take the guesswork out of it all. Throw the waste away in one slot and let some robots and conveyor belts in a high-tech trash can take care of the rest.  

These innovative solutions — Project STEP and SmartBin — along with 23 other projects designed by college students were the focus of Bellevue College’s inaugural ThinkCity 2026 Smart City Innovation event held last month. The hackathon included 156 participants comprised of students from Bellevue College, from colleges and universities around Washington state, and 54 students from South Korea. They all worked together in teams and competed for special cash prizes.  

“We’re trying to make learning meaningful for students through these real-life projects,” Bellevue College Dean of Science Fatma Cemile Serçe, one of the event organizers, said. “They actually worked on real-life city problems that exist for some people living here. They interacted with faculty, mentors, and people who are running similar businesses and operations at the city. We had many stakeholders there who helped contribute to our students’ success.” 

The hackathon was funded through an Amazon grant and sponsored through a partnership with the City of Bellevue. It prompted students to design innovative solutions for real-world community challenges. In addition to city officials, elected officials from the Washington State Legislature’s House of Representatives, business leaders from local startups, and executives from T-Mobile, Microsoft, and Amazon were all in attendance.  

“ThinkCity reflects what is possible when education, community, and innovation come together with purpose,” Serçe said. “Through our partnership with the City of Bellevue and collaboration at the international level, this event created a truly meaningful learning experience for our students. They didn’t just imagine smarter cities, they designed solutions that promote dignity, sustainability, and access for all.”   

International Partnership

The ThinkCity event is one project of many to come from a Bellevue College 2025 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Keimyung University in South Korea. The university is among a consortium of other colleges and universities within the country.  

Under the MOU last year, the college hosted Korean students for a two-week-long visit in the winter. Students participated in several workshops and had the opportunity to compete in a NextGen Startup Challenge, a coding competition where students developed and pitched project ideas. The challenge was such a success, it was brought forward again this year. This past summer, the college sent three Bellevue College students for internships in South Korea, and in September, several faculty from Bellevue Science Division and the XR Lab visited the South Korean university consortium to collaborate on the partnership and learn about their pedagogy.  

“Korea has really good tech and computer science industry vibes,” said Sara Farag, Bellevue College computer science instructor and lead on the project. “They have access to Samsung and big corporations there with some innovative technology. So, we thought, how can we provide this opportunity to our students to expose them to industry and manufacturing paradigms that we might not have access to here, locally.” 

Bellevue College’s Computer Science department has historically led the partnership, which informally began in 2023, and is now closely working with the college’s Engineering department as well. Dr. Taesik Kim, a computer science instructor at Bellevue College, helped start the partnership with the Korean university consortium, comprised of seven private universities. Keimyung University, one of the seven in the consortium, had a special connection to Bellevue College prior to the partnership as Kim not only graduated from Keimyung University, but worked there as an instructor for 21 years before coming to Bellevue College in 2016.  

“The Korean government wants to send their students abroad to the United States or Europe because they want to educate those students at the global level,” Kim said. “If students have a chance, they are better for working with any American student. For instance, together, they can share their ideas and develop new systems, more efficient systems.” 

The first visit in 2023 included 20 Korean students. In 2025, 42 students visited, and this most recent year, 54 students traveled to Bellevue College.  

“We’ve heard from our students, themselves, that they were very, very happy with these experiences and that this was completely different than anything they have done before,” Farag said about the opportunities presented from the partnership. “They were able to assess the challenges of working with non-native English speakers, determine how they overcame communication barriers, and recognize how they ended up complementing each other for the different skills they had. Some of them have built friendships for life, actually. So, overall, it’s been a great success.” 

Im ChoongJae, a professor in gaming software and the head of the Center for Immersive Media Innovation Sharing at Keimyung University, said Korean students who’ve visited Bellevue College have gained valuable experience by collaborating on activities with Bellevue College students.  

“Through this, they learned a great deal about how students from different cultural backgrounds can effectively collaborate,” ChoongJae said. “Additionally, the seven participating Korean university professors learned a great deal not only about Bellevue College, but also about the excellent curriculum of the Computer Science department and are preparing to apply these insights to Korean universities.” 

Student Internships

As part of the partnership, three Bellevue College students traveled to South Korea in August 2025 to complete a six-week long internship at Inception Labs through Keimyung University. The three had completed their capstone project at Bellevue College on an AI supported EKG machine and heart monitor, called EK Genie, which paired nicely with Inception Labs’ own work in photoplethysmography.  

“Basically, [photoplethysmography] is just looking at color changes in the skin to assess the same things,” Bellevue College graduate and Inception Labs intern Evan Ingalls said. “Not a lot of people know this, but your skin actually fluctuates a little bit in color. It’s not really perceptible to the human eye, but it will flash red, a little bit, based on your heartbeat.” 

Ingalls cited the same technology in many peoples’ smartwatches. 

Although Ingalls’ internship with Inception Labs was focused on healthcare solutions, he was still able to use his skills in data analytics and machine learning that he gained while as a student at Bellevue College. He and his peers did this through peer reviewing a study on eye movements and degenerative disorders.  

“We basically ran a clinical trial to replicate the results of their previous paper,” Ingalls said. “We used a bunch of Python libraries to examine the results and created a bunch of graphs and figures to compare the results to the previous graduate student [of the study].” 

Ingalls said he wasn’t initially drawn to healthcare when he was pursuing his Bachelor of Science in Computer Science degree, but his capstone and recent internship have opened up a new world. 

“I think there’s a lot of advancements to be made in machine learning and AI,” Ingalls said. “It’s definitely a new project, a new, field of study for medicine, and I’m really interested in utilizing that to try to get better healthcare outcomes.” 

Ingalls said his opportunity to intern in South Korea helped him both professionally but also on a personal level.  

“There are a lot of different ways to gain different cultural knowledge and experience,” Ingalls said. “Academics is definitely one of the ways to do it, whether it’s studying abroad or trying to find internships or other learning experiences you wouldn’t have in the United States.” 

Bellevue College’s partnership with Korean universities will continue to grow as their global relationship is strengthened each year. Already, the Computer Science department is planning for their next round of internships for summer 2026.  

“We want our students to have the opportunity for global interaction and collaboration so that it can support their soft skills and their career pathways overall,” said Farag.  

Building on this year’s NextGen Startup Challenge, select students may qualify for summer internships with South Korea–based companies that are aligned with their projects. Qualified participants will be contacted by the Computer Science program. 

Discussions are also underway for a Global Innovation Summer Program at Jeju National University, one of the universities in the partnership. The goal will be to bring together students from Bellevue College, South Korea, and other global partners for an intensive 10-day learning experience. 

Additional initiatives under consideration include expanded industry collaborations in South Korea and the potential development of a Global Innovation Hub at Bellevue College as a separate, long-term effort. 

Students who are interested in learning more about the opportunities ahead can find more information at cs@bellevuecollege.edu.