WEBZEN noted that a total of 3,740 teenagers participated in a coding and gaming addiction prevention education program throughout the year 2024.
WEBZEN, in collaboration with the Seongnam Youth Foundation, has organized a structured coding education program for teenagers by age group and successfully completed the ICT invention competition 'Challenge Project.' In the third round of the competition held in November last year, 27 teams from 14 high schools participated, and the scale of the competition is being expanded each year to establish it as a local annual event.
The expansion of the Challenge Project is aligned with WEBZEN's strengthening of its high school coding education program. This competition is an ICT invention competition where graduates of WEBZEN's social contribution project 'Youth Coding Workshop' compete with their learning outcomes, and the number of high school software club education recipients last year recorded 208, an increase of 54 compared to the previous year.
WEBZEN also conducted free coding education for 60 socially disadvantaged youths. Customized courses in Scratch, Arduino, and block coding were operated 20 times annually, providing educational opportunities for youths, including those from the Haeun Community Child Center.
In the coding education program 'Youth Coding Lab' targeting elementary schools, 264 students from 9 elementary schools in Seongnam had the opportunity to learn about robotics coding and the principles of artificial intelligence (AI).
The gaming and internet addiction prevention education program 'Good Gamer Classroom' was conducted in a total of 112 classes following applications from 15 elementary schools. Specialized instructors were dispatched to address social issues such as deepfakes, personal information leakage, and SNS addiction, contributing to the improvement of digital literacy among youths.
In recognition of such activities, WEBZEN received a commendation plaque from Seongnam City in December last year. WEBZEN is now settling accounts for its 2024 projects in collaboration with the Seongnam Youth Foundation and reviewing the evaluation contents to establish a program operation plan for 2025.