SK Telecom (NYSE:SKM, hereinafter referred to as “SKT”) today announced that it signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) for the development and operation of Nugu Vaccine Care Call, an artificial intelligence (AI)-based service designed to help COVID-19 vaccinations.

Nugu Vaccine Care Call is a service where SKT’s AI ‘Nugu’ makes phone calls to notify a person of the inoculation schedule and monitor side effects of the COVID-19 vaccines. The monitoring results are immediately uploaded to the Nugu Vaccine Care Call website to be accessed by the medical center personnel.

SKT and KDCA plan to complete the service development within the second quarter of 2021 and will begin providing vaccination-related information to the digitally marginalized groups including the elderly from the third quarter.

Nugu Vaccine Care Call is also expected to alleviate the workload of employees of the vaccination center and related medical institutions. Nugu Care Call, an AI-powered automated check-in call service for people under self-quarantine and active surveillance, has successfully reduced the workload of healthcare workers by 85 percent. From May 2020 to early April 2021, around 120,000 people received 1.3 million calls from the Nugu Care Call service.

Nugu Vaccine Care Call will provide information on immune response to vaccinations as well as appropriate measures in case of abnormalities to relieve concerns over the safety of COVID-19 vaccines.

“We hope Nugu Vaccine Care Call will help us overcome the COVID-19,” said Lee Hyun-a, Vice President and Head of AI& CO of SKT. “Going forward, we will continue to explore innovative ideas and measures to create social value by utilizing our AI technologies.”

“Through this MOU, we will be able to provide our senior citizens with important vaccination-related information and support,” said Jung Eun-kyeong, Commissioner of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency.