Nexon Marks 10th Anniversary of NYPC Youth Coding Competition: "We Will Create Opportunities for Challenge and Growth"

First Held in 2016, Leading the Popularization of Coding Education
Over 40,000 Participants in Total; Awardees Engage in Social Contribution Activities

The Nexon Youth Programming Challenge (NYPC) celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. Launched in 2016 under the slogan "Coding to Change the World," NYPC introduced a variety of problems utilizing Nexon's game intellectual properties, making it possible for students with no prior coding experience to participate in the competition. Since 2017, more than 4,000 participants have entered the preliminary round each year, and over the past decade, the cumulative number of participants has reached approximately 40,000.

Nexon Youth Programming Challenge (NYPC) competition venue panorama. Provided by Nexon

According to a survey conducted among NYPC participants to mark the 10th anniversary, 52% of students who took part in this year's preliminary round were first-time participants, and over 90% of all participants expressed their intention to return for the competition next year.

Eight out of ten participants said they also wanted to take on the new university student team strategy competition, "CODE BATTLE," introduced for the first time this year. This demonstrates that NYPC has established itself as a community offering continuous growth opportunities from youth to university students.

NYPC has played a leading role in popularizing coding education through its problem selection and competition management. Each year, algorithm problems based on popular Nexon game intellectual properties such as "MapleStory," "Mabinogi Mobile," and "Dave the Diver," interactive problems that can be tackled through simulators even without coding knowledge, and creative problems proposed by Nexon employees through internal contests are featured in the competition.

Participants are supported in learning previous problems through the free integrated coding education platform "BIKO," and can assess their evolving skill levels each year via their personal pages, setting goals and taking on new challenges accordingly.

To date, a total of 193 individuals have been awarded in NYPC. These winners have engaged in various social contribution activities to bridge the digital divide and promote coding culture.

In August of last year, past NYPC awardees visited middle and high schools in Jeju to host a volunteer coding education camp, providing coding mentorship, lectures tailored to different skill levels, and problem-solving sessions. Former winners returned as problem setters and participated in educational volunteering in Jeju, fostering a virtuous cycle through their social contribution efforts.

Looking ahead to the next decade, the plan is to provide an environment where participants can naturally acquire the problem-solving methods and collaborative experiences required in the era of artificial intelligence (AI), keeping pace with the evolving technological landscape.

The goal is to go beyond a competition that simply tests algorithmic skills, and instead offer experiences where participants design ideas and develop strategies together, enabling them to embrace coding as both a language and a tool for thinking.

Kim Jungwook, Chairman of the Nexon Foundation, stated, "NYPC has provided more than just a competition to test coding skills; it has offered experiences to communicate with the world and solve problems through technology. We will continue to create opportunities for participants to challenge themselves, collaborate, and grow in their own ways."