Around 5,900 Youth Successfully Complete '2024 Digital Sprout' Program

The '2024 Digital Saessak' program, a journey to awaken the digital capabilities of future generations, concluded grandly with the enthusiastic participation of 5,918 elementary, middle, and high school students nationwide. This program, collaboratively hosted by the Ministry of Education, 17 provincial/metropolitan offices of education, and the Korea Foundation for the Advancement of Science and Creativity, and operated by the Awesome School, Glorang, and Modu's Lab consortium, is evaluated as having opened new horizons in digital education. Digital Saessak, which initially began primarily in the Gyeonggi region, expanded nationwide to areas including Seoul, Incheon, Honam, and Jeju, providing more students with artificial intelligence (AI) and software (SW) education opportunities. The program, operated a total of 270 times, proved its success with high satisfaction among participating students (an average of 4.4 out of 5 points) and enthusiastic support from responsible teachers (4.7 points). The most significant feature of this program is that it introduced the innovative concept of 'Digital Marathon Completion,' thereby encouraging the formation of long-term learning habits. Students developed real-world problem-solving skills through AI/SW-based Project-Based Learning (PBL) and carried out creative project activities linked to subjects. Experiencing diverse convergence education, such as board game design, webtoon creation, and app service planning and production, they learned to utilize digital technology not merely as a tool but as a medium for creative expression. In this process, a remarkable 1,910 original projects were discovered, which was a result demonstrating students' creative application skills in AI/SW beyond mere technical acquisition. Lee Ji-seop, CEO of Awesome School, pledged that building on the success of 2024, in 2025, they would expand more sustainable digital learning models and strengthen their connection with public education. He stated his ambition to lead the popularization of AI/SW education and continuously develop and support innovative learning models to enable students, who will be the protagonists of future society, to fully unleash their digital capabilities. Digital Saessak will continue to be an important milestone illuminating the future of education in South Korea.