Hanyang University announced on March 7 that a research team by Professor Kim Hyung-sook at the Department of Data Science (Director of the Hanyang University Digital Healthcare Center) signed an MOU on March 2 in New York with the Korean Community Service ("KCS" hereafter) to enhance the mental health of Korean living in New York with digital technology and to carry international cooperation research.

At the event, Director Kim Hyung-sook of the Hanyang University Digital Healthcare Center, Professor Noh Young-tae at the Department of Data Science, Professor Han Kyung-sik at the Department of Data Science, President Kim Myung-mi from the KCS and signed an MOU that deals with international co-research cooperation of the "Digital Healthcare Service-Based Multimodal Mental Healthcare AI Technology Development".

The participants discussed a detailed way to use the 'digital wellness mental health service', a research result of the research team, in mental health prevention and management of Korean people in New York. Also, by securing users of mental health application services in the United States, they discussed ways to continuously cooperate and support the effectiveness of the supranational digital wellness services.

Both organizations are going to conduct data-collecting strategies that improve artificial intelligence's performance using multimodal data by collecting data in both Korea and the United States. In detail, they decided to start △ developing educational programs for digital-weak social class and △ application services for mental health applications for 200 KCS staff members in April.

The research team is carrying out continuous industry-university-research discussions and legal reviews for digital-bio-related technology connection to business plan establishment and they will actively conduct international cooperation with many global researchers afterwards.

Professor Kim Hyung-sook said, "Starting from the MOU with the KCS, we will lead ourselves to stand in a core position to solve global mental health issues in digital methods. I will devote myself to creating innovative research biosphere by being a successful model of global international cooperation."

In the meantime, Hanyang University Digital Healthcare Center is managing the 'Post-COVID-19 Era Remote Non-Face-to-Face Mental Disorder Prevention and Managing Platform Technology Development' research and also conducting a clinical trial for verification of digital therapy at Samsung Medical Center and Hanyang University for the first time in Korea. Also, it developed three digital therapies including a cognitive behavioral therapy app for treating obsessive and compulsive disorder and depression and VR-based acceptance and commitment therapy content, and it will carry one exploratory clinical trial and two confirmed clinical trials this year.