Nexon Foundation, Nexon's social contribution foundation, announced on July 11 that it will join hands with its education NGO Bebras Korea and develop Bebras Programming platform where anyone from elementary school students to adults can learn computer programming for free.
Bebras programming is working on launching it in the first half of next year. It was made to help resolve the growing gap in computer programming education according to regions and income gaps and expand the base of coding education.
Bebras Korea is a non-profit organization in which 100 IT teachers and university professors across the country donate their talents for the development of IT education. Teachers and professors taking part directly in the development of coding education program.
Nexon and Bebras Korea paid attention to household income levels, and also to the educational gap between countries and regions. The annual programming class hours of Korea’s public education is only 51 hours, which is the lowest compared to the UK (374 hours), India (256 hours), and China (212 hours). There were also big regional differences in the private education environment. There are 49 private institutions that teach programming in the metropolitan area, but only 15 in non-metropolitan areas, showing that educational infrastructure is concentrated in the metropolitan area.
The Nexon Foundation said, "It will be a systematic education site that encompasses everything from cultivating computing thinking, which is the basis of programming, to basic text coding and deep learning. By dividing the stages in detail, we will make the education contents that anyone can study from it.” The Nexon Foundation has also been operating the Nexon Youth Challenge Program since 2016 to raise the interest in programming among young people and enhance their capabilities.
Pangyo Technovalley is an innovation hub for global companies comparable to the Silicon Valley in the US, Zhongguancun in China, and STATION F in France. It is an Asia tech hub with 1,259 IT, BT, CT, and NT companies that possess innovative products and technologies. Located just south of the metropolitan area, it provides the best environment for Korean companies to do business with great transportation access and infrastructure.
Various high-tech companies are located in Pangyo Technovalley, and it is occupied by 64,000 full-time employees, many in their 20-30s. In terms of industry, the companies are engaged in information technology, contents technology, biotechnology, and nanotechnology.
With the support of innovative companies with global capabilities such as Kakao, Naver, AhnLab, Krafton, NCSoft, Nexon, and Hancom, companies in Pangyo Technovalley recorded 107 trillion won in sales last year. Investment and infrastructure growth in Pangyo is expected to continue, with the Metaverse hub entering Pangyo this year.
Source: Pangyo Techno Valley Official Newsroom
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