South Korea’s leading game company Nexon has rolled up its sleeves to foster better education on coding for students.

Since 2016, the firm has been running the “Nexon Youth Programming Challenge,” an annual coding competition that has attracted more than 17,000 eager students.

To help familiarize students with coding, Nexon has used what it knows best: games.

Instead of solving textbook coding problems, students are given practical problems that are more relatable. Last year, for example, students were given coding problems involving Nexon’s role-playing game MapleStory to figure out how to identify a game character’s class and job automatically.

“As technology related to the ‘fourth industrial revolution’ is gaining more attention and importance, there should be more opportunities for youngsters to understand coding more easily and have the right perception of it,” Nexon Foundation Chairman Kim Jung-wook said.

“Based on its know-how, Nexon will continue its support for youngsters so that they can perceive coding as a fun logical tool.”

For this year’s NYPC, which was held online Aug. 15-16 due to concerns over the coronavirus outbreak, coding experts participated as ambassadors, including Arques CEO Kim Sung-min and Amazon Web Services specialist Seo Ji-hye.

By Kim Byung-wook (kbw@heraldcop.com)